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THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 


Ipubll6ber'0  Announcement 


A  NOTABLE  BOOK 

DRIFTING 

Crown  8vo.,  cloth,  2s.  6d. 

THIRD  EDITION 

*  An  able  and  suggestive  book.' — 
The  Spectator. 

*  It  is  a  sane,  healthy  indication  of 
the  weak  spots  in  the  country's  armour, 
and  a  practical  attempt  to  indicate 
remedies.' — The  Sunday  Special. 

*  The  author's  contempt  for  the  time- 
serving politician,  who  in  this  country 
has,  unfortunately,  come  to  count  for 
so  much  in  all  governments — Tory 
or  Liberal — will  be  shared  by  the 
thinking  portion  of  his  fellow  country- 
men.'—  The  Financial  News. 

*  By  such  suggestions  the  author  of 
"  Drifting  "  does  good  service  to  the 
country.' — The  Outlook. 


LONDON ;    GRANT  RICHARDS 

9,  Henrietta  Street,  W.C. 


The 

Curse  of  Education 

-..1 


HAROLD  E.  GORST 


London 

Grant  Richards 

1901 


Gr7A3 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

In  calling  this  little  book  *  The  Curse  of  Education,' 
I  trust  that  I  shall  not  be  misunderstood  to  disparage 
culture.  The  term  *  education '  is  used,  for  want  of 
a  better  word,  to  express  the  conventional  mode  of 
teaching  and  bringing  up  children,  and  of  educating 
youth  in  this  and  other  civilized  countries.  It  is 
with  education  systems,  with  the  universal  method  of 
cramming  the  mind  with  facts,  and  particularly  with 
the  manufacture  of  uniformity  and  mediocrity  by 
subjecting  every  individual  to  a  common  process, 
regardless  of  his  natural  bent,  that  I  have  chiefly 
to  find  fault.  At  a  moment  when  the  country  is 
agitated  with  questions  of  educational  reform,  I 
thought  it  might  be  useful  to  draw  attention  to 
what  I  believe  to  be  a  fact,  namely,  that  the  founda- 
tions of  all   existing   education   systems   are   abso- 

1.19758 


vi  PREFATORY  NOTE 

lutely  false  in  principle;  and  that  teaching  itself,  as 
opposed  to  natural  development  and  self-culture,  is 
the  greatest  obstacle  to  human  progress  that  social 
evolution  has  ever  had  to  encounter. 


HAROLD  E.  GORST. 


London, 

Aprils  1 90 1. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.   FLOURISHING  MEDIOCRITY I 

II.   SQUARE   PEGS   IN   ROUND   HOLES       ....  8 

III.  THE  DESTRUCTION   OF  GENIUS           .           .           .           .  l8 

I,     IV.   HUMAN   FACTORIES 26 

V.  THE  GREATEST  MISERY  OF  THE  GREATEST  NUMBER  35 

iKfl.  THE  OUTPUT  OF  PRIGS 44 

I^II.   BOY  DEGENERATION 53 

VIII.  THE  STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EDUCATED           ...  62 

IX.  woman's  empire  over  man 68 

^X.   YOUTH  AND   CRIME 77 

XI.   MENTAL   BREAKDOWN 86 

XII.   EVIDENCE  OF   HISTORY 92 

XIII.  THE  APOTHEOSIS   OF  CRAM I09 

XIV.  THE  GREAT   FALLACY II 8 

^    XV.   REAL  EDUCATION 1 26 

XVI.  THE  OPEN   DOOR  TO   INTELLIGENCE         .  .  .135 


THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER  I     I  ^^^^RSfrv 

FLOURISHING   MEDIOCRITtr'^.<84^0R^. 

Humanity  is  rapidly  becoming  less  the  outcome  of 
a  natural  process  of  development,  and  more  and  more 
the  product  of  an  organized  educational  plan.  The 
average  educated  man  possesses  no  real  individuality. 
He  is  simply  a  manufactured  article  bearing  the 
stamp  of  the  maker. 

Year  by  year  this  fact  is  becoming  more  empha- 
sized. During  the  past  century  almost  every  civilized 
country  applied  itself  feverishly  to  the  invention  of 
a  national  plan  of  education,  with  the  result  that  the 
majority  of  mankind  are  compelled  to  swallow  a 
uniform  prescription  of  knowledge  made  up  for  them 
by  the  State.  Now  there  is  a  great  outcry  that 
England  is  being  left  behind  in  this  educational  race. 
Other  nations  have  got  more  exact  systems.  Where 
the  Brifish  child  is  only  stuffed  with  six  pounds  of 
facts,  the  German  and  French  schools  contrive  to 
cram  seven  pounds  into  their  pupils.  Consequently, 
Germany  and  France  are  getting  ahead  of  us,  and 
unless  we  wish  to  be  beaten  in  the  international  race, 

I 


2  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

it  is  asserted  that  we  must  bring  our  own  educational 
system  up  to  the  Continental  standard. 

Before  going  more  deeply  into  this  vital  question, 
it  is  just  as  well  to  consider  what  these  education 
systems  have  really  done  for  mankind.  There  is  a 
proverb,  as  excellent  as  it  is  ancient,  which  says  that 
the  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating.  No  doubt 
learned  theoretical  treatises  upon  the  scope  and  aim 
of  educational  methods  are  capital  things  in  their 
way,  but  they  tell  us  nothing  of  the  effects  of  this 
systematic  teaching  and  cramming  upon  the  world  at 
large.  If  we  wish  to  ascertain  them,  we  must  turn 
to  life  itself,  and  judge  by  results. 

To  begin  with,  the  dearth  of  great  men  is  so  re- 
markable that  it  scarcely  needs  comment.  People 
are  constantly  expressing  the  fear  that  the  age  of 
intellectual  giants  has  passed  away  altogether.  This 
is  particularly  obvious  in  political  life.  Since  the 
days  of  Gladstone  and  Disraeli,  Parliamentary  debate 
has  sunk  to  the  most  hopeless  level  of  mediocrity. 
The  traditions  of  men  such  as  Pitt,  Fox,  Palmerston, 
Peel,  and  others,  sound  at  the  present  day  almost  like 
ancient  mythology.  Yet  the  supposed  benefits  of 
education  are  not  only  now  free  to  all,  but  have  been 
compulsorily  conferred  upon  most  nations.  Neverthe- 
less, even  Prussian  pedagogues  have  never  succeeded 
in  producing  another  Bismarck ;  and  France  has 
ground  away  at  her  educational  mill  for  generations 
with  the  result  that  the  supply  of  Napoleons  has 
distinctly  diminished. 

Look  at  the  methods  by  which  our  public  service 
is  recruited. 


FLOURISHING  MEDIOCRITY  3 

Who  are  the  men  to  whom  the  administration  of 
all  important  departments  of  Government  is  entrusted, 
and  how  are  they  selected  ? 

They  are  simply  individuals  who  have  succeeded 
in  obtaining  most  marks  in  public  competitive 
examinations  —  that  is  to  say,  men  whose  brains 
have  been  more  effectually  stuffed  with  facts  and 
mechanical  knowledge  than  were  the  brains  of  their 
unsuccessful  competitors. 

There  is  no  question,  when  a  candidate  presents 
himself  for  a  post  in  the  Diplomatic  Service  or  in  one 
of  the  Government  offices,  whether  he  possesses  tact, 
or  administrative  ability,  or  knowledge  of  the  world. 
All  that  is  demanded  of  him  is  that  his  mind  should 
be  crammed  with  so  many  pounds  avoirdupois  of 
Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  history,  geography,  etc., 
acquired  in  such  a  way  that  he  will  forget,  within  a 
couple  of  years,  every  fact  that  has  been  pestled  into 
him.  For  every  vacancy  in  the  various  departments 
of  the  Administration  there  are  dozens,  or  even  scores, 
of  applicants  ;  and  the  candidate  selected  for  the  post 
is  the  one  whose  mind  has  been  most  successfully 
subjected  to  this  process  of  over-cramming,  and  con- 
sequently most  effectually  ruined  for  all  the  practical 
purposes  of  life. 

Now,  to  whatever  cause  it  may  be  ascribed,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  general  level  throughout  the 
various  branches  of  the  public  service  is  one  of 
mediocrity.  We  are  not  surrounded,  faithful  and 
devoted  as  our  public  servants  are  universally  ad- 
mitted to  be,  by  administrative  geniuses.  Facts 
point    altogether   the   other   way.      Great    national 

I — 2 


4  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION       ' 

catastrophes,  like  the  blunders  and  miscalculations 
that  have  characterized  the  conduct  of  the  war  in 
South  Africa,  have  always  resulted  in  making  the 
most  uncomfortable  revelations  concerning  the  in- 
efficiency of  more  than  one  important  department  of 
Government. 

The  War  Office  has  long  since  become  a  public 
scandal,  and  if  the  truth  were  known  about  the  inner 
domesticity  of  more  than  one  great  Administrative 
office,  the  susceptibilities  of  the  nation  would  be  still 
further  shocked  and  outraged.  Fortunately,  however 
— or  it  may  be  unfortunately — Government  linen  is 
usually  washed  at  home ;  and  it  is  only  in  times  of 
great  emergency  that  the  truth  leaks  out,  to  the 
general  consternation. 

When  this  does  happen  there  is  a  great  outcry 
about  the  inefficiency  of  this  or  that  branch  of  the 
public  service.  The  Government  in  power  wait  to 
see  if  the  agitation  dies  a  natural  death  ;  and  if  it  is 
successfully  kept  up,  a  sort  of  pretence  at  reform 
takes  place.  There  is  a  re-shuffle.  Fresh  names  are 
given  to  old  abuses ;  incompetent  officials  exchange 
posts  ;  and  a  new  building  is  erected  at  the  public 
expense^     Then  all  goes  on  as  heretofore. 

Nobody  seems  to  think  of  making  an  inquiry  into 
the  constitution  of  the  public  service  itself.  But  until 
this  is  done  no  real  reform  of  any  permanent  value 
can  possibly  be  effected.  It  is  not  the  nomenclature 
of  appointments,  the  subdivision  of  departmental 
work,  and  such  matters  of  detail,  that  stand  in  need 
of  the  reformer.  The  titles  and  duties  of  the  several 
officials  are  of  secondary  importance.      It  is  not  in 


FLOURISHING  MEDIOCRITY  5 

them  that  the  evils  of  bad  administration  are  to  be 
located. 

The  fault  lies  with  the  officials  themselves,  who 
are  the  victims  of  the  stupid  system  which  has 
placed  them  in  the  position  they  occupy.  The 
education  they  have  received  has,  in  the  first  case, 
unfitted  them  for  the  performance  of  any  but 
mechanical  and  routine  work ;  and  the  strain  of  a 
competitive  examination,  involving  the  most  unintel- 
lectual  and  brain-paralyzing  process  of  cram,  has 
probably  destroyed  the  faculty  of  initiative,  which 
should  be,  but  is  not,  a  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  the  administrative  official. 

Herein  lies  the  secret  of  all  opposition  to  progress. 
It  is  the  permanent  official  who  needs  reforming. 
He  is  the  embodiment  of  routine  and  conservatism, 
because  he  is  the  embodiment  of  mediocrity.  Pro- 
gress means  ideas^  and  mediocrity  does  not  deal  in 
them.  It  has  been  furnished,  instead,  by  a  systematic 
course  of  instruction,  with  a  sufficient  equipment  of 
the  ideas  of  other  people  to  last  its  lifetime.  Whilst 
we  fill  our  public  service  with  specially  prepared 
mediocrity,  the  administrative  departments  will  re- 
main  reactionary.      And   as   long    as   educatioa-4s-«. 


synonymous  with  cramming  on  an  organized  plan, 
it  will  continue  to  produce  mediocrity.. 

The  army  affords  at  the  present  moment  an 
admirable  object-lesson  in  this  connection.  The 
results  of  cramming  young  men  as  a  preparation  for 
a  profession  which  demands,  more  than  any  other, 
individual  initiative  and  independence,  have  become 
painfully  apparent  upon  the  field  of  battle.     One  of 


6  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

our  foremost  generals  has  come  home  from  the 
campaign  declaring  the  necessity  of  both  officers  and 
men  being  trained  to  think  and  act  for  themselves. 
That  is  one,  perhaps  the  chief,  of  the  great  lessons 
which  this  war  has  taught  us.  But  here,  again,  no 
useful  reform  can  be  achieved  by  alterations  in  the 
drill-book,  through  lectures  by  experienced  generals, 
or  by  the  issue  of  army  orders.  It  is  our  entire 
system  of  education  which  is  again  at  fault. 

Boys  are  stuffed  with  facts  before  they  go  to  Sand- 
hurst, and  when  they  get  there  they  are  crammed  in 
special  subjects.  The  whole  object  of  the  process  is  to 
enable  candidates  to  pass  examinations,  and  not  to 
produce  good  officers.  The  effect  here  is  the  same 
as  elsewhere.  A  quantity  of  useless  and  some  useful 
knowledge  is  drilled  into  the  pupil  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  mind  retains  nothing  that  has  been  put 
into  it.  And,  to  make  matters  worse,  all  this  is 
done  at  the  expense  of  retarding  the  proper  develop- 
ment of  faculties  which  would  be  of  incalculable 
.value  to  the  soldier. 

Most  of  the  blunders  of  the  war  are,  in  fact,  attri- 
butable to  want  of  common  sense,  and  common  sense 
consists  in  the  capacity  of  an  individual  to  think  for 
himself  and  to  exercise  his  judgment.  Educational 
methods  which,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  appear  to 
destroy  this  faculty  altogether  are  clearly  pernicious. 
Common  sense  is  the  most  valuable  gift  with  which 
man  can  be  endowed.  It  is  the  very  essence  of 
genius,  for  it  consists  in  the  application  of  intelligence 
to  every  detail,  and  the  highest  order  of  intellect  can 
accomplish  no  more  than  that.     Yet  it  is  the  rarest  of 


, FLOURISHING  MEDIOCRITY  7 

all  attributes,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  deliberately 
destroyed  by  conventional  methods  of  bringing  up 
children  and  instructing  youth.  Therefore,  before 
we  can  hope  to  obtain  a  supply  of  self-reliant  officers 
and  men,  we  must  see  some  radical  change  in  the 
very  principles  upon  which  modern  methods  of 
education  are  founded. 

Wherever  we  go  we  find  this  curse  of  mediocrity. 
In  the  professions,  at  the  Bar,  in  the  pulpit,  amongst 
physicians,  it  is  apparent  everywhere.  There  are 
clever  men,  of  course;  but  the  very  fact  that  their 
names  spring  at  once  prominently  to  mind  is  in  itself 
a  proof  that  ability  is  exceptional. 

Some  people,  of  course,  accepting  the  world  as  they 
find  it,  may  think  it  very  unreasonable  to  expect  able 
men  to  be  plentiful  in  all  walks  of  life.  That  is,  to 
my  mind,  the  chief  pathos  of  the  situation.  It  has 
come  to  be  accepted  that  the  world  must  be  filled 
with  a  great  majority  of  very  commonplace  people, 
even  amongst  the  educated  classes. 

No  doubt  it  is  filled  at  the  present  moment  with  a 
very  vast  preponderance  of  conventional  minds  manu- 
factured to  meet  the  supposed  requirements  of  our 
complicated  civilization.  But  I  deny  that  this  need 
be  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  surrounded 
on  all  sides  by  ability,  by  great  possibilities  of 
individual  development,even  by  genius. 

And  our  education  systems  are  busily  engaged 
in  the  work  of  destroying  this  precious  material, 
substituting  facts  for  ideas,  forcing  the  mind  away 
from  its  natural  bent,  and  manufacturing  a  machine 
instead  of  a  man. 


CHAPTER  II 

SQUARE   PEGS   IN    ROUND   HOLES 

Perhaps  the  worst  evil  from  which  the  world  suffers 
in  an  educational  sense  is  the  misplaced  individual. 
Nothing  is  more  tragic,  and  yet  nothing  is  more 
common,  than  to  see  men  occupying  positions  for 
which  they  are  unfitted  by  nature  and  therefore  by 
inclination  ;  whilst  it  is  obvious  that,  had  the  circum- 
stances of  their  early  training  been  different,  they 
might  have  followed  with  success  and  pleasure  a 
natural  bent  of  mind  tending  in  a  wholly  opposite 
direction. 

This  miscarriage  of  vocation  is  one  of  the  greatest 
causes  of  individual  misery  in  this  world  that  exists ; 
but  its  pernicious  effects  go  far  beyond  mere  personal 
unhappiness  :  they  exercise  the  most  baneful  influence 
upon  society  at  large,  upon  the  progress  of  nations, 
and  upon  the  development  of  the  human  race.  One 
of  the  advantages  of  the  division  of  labour  which  is 
most  emphasized  by  political  economists  is  that  it 
offers  a  fair  field  for  personal  adaptation.  People 
select  the  particular  employment  for  which  they  are 
most  fitted,  and  in  this  way  everybody  in  the  com-  „ 
munity  is  engaged  in  doing  the  best  and  most  useful 
work  of  which  he  is  capable. 


SQUARE  PEGS  IN  ROUND  HOLES       9 

It  is  a  fine  theory.  Perhaps  in  olden  times,  before 
the  introduction  of  education  systems,  it  may  have 
worked  well  in  regard  to  most  trades  and  industries. 
A  man  had  then  at  least  some  opportunity  of  develop- 
ing a  natural  bent.  He  was  not  taken  by  the  State 
almost  from  infancy,  crammed  with  useless  know- 
ledge, and  totally  unfitted  for  any  employment  within 
his  reach.  The  object  was  not  to  educate  him  above 
his  station  and  then  make  a  clerk  of  him,  or  drive 
him  into  the  lower  branches  of  the  Civil  Service.  A 
bright  youth  was  apprenticed  by  his  father  to  some 
trade  for  which  he  may  have  shown  some  predisposition. 

Of  course,  mistakes  were  often  made  through  the 
stupidity  of  parents  or  from  some  other  cause. 
There  are  many  such  examples  to  be  met  with  in  the 
biographies  of  men  who  attained  eminence  in  wholly 
different  callings  from  those  into  which  they  were 
forced  in  their  youth. 

Sir  William  Herschel,  who  discovered  Uranus,  and 
who  first  conceived  the  generally-accepted  theory  as 
to  the  cause  of  sun-spots,  was  brought  up  by  his 
father  to  be  a  musician.  In  spite  of  his  predilection 
for  astronomy,  he  continued  to  earn  his  bread  by 
playing  the  oboe,  until  he  was  promoted  from  being 
a  performer  in  the  Pump  Room  at  Bath  to  the  position 
of  Astronomer  Royal. 

Faraday  was  apprenticed  by  his  father  to  a  book- 
binder, and  he  remained  in  this  distasteful  employ- 
ment until  he  was  twenty-two.  It  was  quite  by  acci- 
dent that  somebody  more  intelligent  than  Michael 
Faraday's  pastors  and  masters  discovered  that  the 
youth  had  a  great  natural  love  of  studying  science, 


lo  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

and  sent  him  to  hear  a  course  of  lectures  delivered  by 
Sir  Humphry  Davy.  This  led  happily  to  the  young 
bookbinder  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  lecturer, 
and  eventually  obtaining  a  position  as  assistant  in  the 
Royal  Institution. 

Linnaeus,  the  great  naturalist,  had  a  very  narrow 
escape  from  missing  his  proper  vocation.  He  was 
/  sent  to  a  grammar-school,  but  exhibited  no  taste  for 
books;  therefore  his  father  decided  to  apprentice 
him  to  a  shoemaker.  Fortunately,  however,  a  dis- 
criminating physician  had  observed  the  boy's  love  of 
natural  history,  and  took  him  into  his  own  house  to 
teach  him  botany  and  physiology. 

.Instances  of  the  kind  might  be  multiplied.  Milton 
himself  began  life  as  a  schoolmaster,  and  the  father 
of  Turner,  one  of  the  greatest  landscape  painters  who 
ever  lived,  did  his  best  to  turn  his  brilliant  son  into 
a  barber.  The  point,  however,  is  obvious  enough 
without  the  need  of  further  illustration.  A  few 
examples  have  been  adduced  of  great  geniuses  who 
have  contrived,  by  the  accident  of  circumstances  or 
through  sheer  force  of  character,  to  escape  from  an 
environment  which  was  forced  upon  them  against 
their  natural  inclination.  But  it  is  not  everybody  who 
is  gifted  with  such  commanding  talent  and  so  much 
obstinacy  and  perseverance  as  to  be  able  to  over- 
come the  artificial  obstacles  placed  in  the  way  of  his 
individual  tendencies  ;  and  now  we  have,  what  happily 
did  not  exist  in  the  day  of  Herschel,  Faraday,  Turner, 
Linnaeus  and  others — a  compulsory  education  system 
to  strangle  originality  and  natural  development  at  the 
earliest  possible  stage. 


SQUARE  PEGS  IN  ROUND  HOLES      ii 

Most  people  would  probably  find  it  far  easier  to 
quote  instances  offhand  of  friends  who  had  missed 
their  proper  vocation  in  life  than  of  those  who  were 
placed  exactly  in  the  position  best  suited  to  their 
taste  and  capacity.  The  failures  in  life  are  so 
obviously  in  excess  of  those  who  may  be  said  to  have 
succeeded  that  specific  illustrations  of  the  fact  are 
hardly  necessary. 

One  has  only  to  exert  ordinary  powers  of  observa- 
tion to  perceive  that  the  world  is  not  at  all  well 
ordered  in  this  respect.  It  has  already  been  pointed 
out  that  the  public  service  and  the  professions 
are  almost  entirely  filled  with  what  must  be  called 
mediocrity ;  and  one  of  the  most  potent  causes  of  this 
unhappy  state  of  affairs  is  the  exquisite  infallibility 
with  which  a  blind  system  is  constantly  forcing  square 
pegs  into  round  holes. 

Every  profession  and  calling  teems  with  examples. 
There  are  men,  intended  by  nature  to  be  artists  and 
musicians,  leading  a  wretched  and  unnatural  existence 
in  many  a  merchant's  office  because  their  best  faculties 
were  undeveloped  during  the  early  years  of  schooling. 
Mathematicians,  philosophers,  even  poets,  are  tied 
to  trade  or  to  some  equally  unsuitable  occupation. 
Scores  of  so-called  literary  men  ought  to  be  calculat- 
ing percentages  or  selling  dry  goods ;  and  no  doubt 
there  are  shop-assistants  and  stock-jobbers  who  might, 
if  led  into  the  path  of  culture,  have  become  creditable 
authors  and  journalists. 

This  is  neither  joke  nor  satire.  It  is  sober 
earnest,  as  many  observant  readers  will  readily 
testify.     The  loss  is  not  only  to  the  individual,  it  is 


12  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

to  society  at  large,  and  to  the  whole  world.  No 
one  will  deny  the  fact ;  but  to  how  many  will  it 
occur  that  such  anomalies  cannot  be  the  outcome  of 
natural  development  and  progress,  but  that  they 
must  be  directly  or  indirectly  attributable  to  some 
artificial  cause  ? 

It  is  the  great  difficulty  against  which  all  human 
advancement  has  to  contend,  that  people  can  rarely 
be  brought  to  question  principles  which  have  become 
a  part  and  parcel  of  their  everyday  existence. 
There  are  plenty  of  individuals  who  are  ready  to 
tinker  with  existing  institutions,  and  who  erroneously 
dignify  that  process  by  the  name  of  reform.  But 
nothing  is  more  despairing  than  the  effort  to  con- 
vince conventionally  brought  up  people  that  some 
cherished  convention,  with  which  the  world  has  put 
up  for  an  indefinite  period,  is  founded  upon  fallacy, 
and  ought  to  be  cast  out  root  and  branch. 

Even  in  the  United  States,  where  far  greater 
efforts  are  made  to  encourage  individuality  in  the 
schools  and  colleges  than  is  the  case  with  the 
countries  of  the  Old  World,  people  are  not  much 
better  distributed  amongst  the  various  professions 
and  occupations  than  they  are  here.  I  have  made 
inquiries  amongst  Americans  of  wide  experience  and 
observation,  and  have  learnt  that  nothing  is  more 
common  in  the  States  than  to  find  individuals 
brought  up  to  exercise  functions  for  which  they  are 
wholly  unfitted  by  natural  capacity  and  inclination. 

An  instance  was  given  me,  by  an  American  friend, 
of  a  boy  who  spent  all  his  leisure  in  constructing 
clever    little    mechanical    contrivances,    in    running 


^fegUARE  PEGS  IN  ROUND  HOLES      13 

miniature  locomotives,  and  in  setting  up  electric 
appliances  of  one  kind  and  another.  One  day  the 
youth's  father  came  to  him  and  said  :  '  I  don't  know 

what   to   make   of   B -.     Could  you   find  him   a 

place  in  a  wholesale  merchant's  office  ?'  When  it 
was  pointed  out  to  the  parent  that  his  son  showed 
unmistakable  mechanical  genius,  he  obstinately  in- 
sisted on  getting  the  boy  a  situation  for  which  he 
was  quite  unsuited,  and  which  was  highly  distasteful 
to  him. 

I  quote  this  instance  to  show  that  the  parent  is 
often  as  bad  an  educator  as  the  school  itself.  In 
this  case  the  school  would  have  taken  as  little  notice 
of  the  boy's  natural  bent  as  his  father.  It  would, 
in  all  probability,  never  have  discovered  it  at  all. 
But  it  has  become  so  much  an  accepted  axiom  that 
children  are  to  be  manufactured  into  anything  that 
happens  to  suit  the  taste  or  convenience  of  their 
guardians,  that  it  probably  never  occurred  to  the 
parent  in  question  that  he  was  committing  a  cruel 
and  foolish  act  in  forcing  his  son  out  of  the  path 
into  which  the  boy's  natural  instinct  was  guiding 
him.  The  youth  who  might  have  pursued  a  happy 
and  prosperous  career  as  a  mechanical  engineer  is 
now  a  disappointed  man,  struggling  on,  with  little 
hope  of  success,  in  an  occupation  which  does  not 
interest  him,  and  for  which  he  does  not  possess  the 
slightest  adaptability. 

Every  nation  is  equally  at  fault  in  this  respect. 
In  Germany,  for  instance,  the  child  is  quite  as  much 
a  pawn  at  the  disposal  of  its  parent  and  the  school 
system  as  it   is   elsewhere.      I   spent   a   number   of 


14  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

years  in  the  country,  and  enjoyed  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  many  German  families.  Nothing 
has  left  upon  my  mind  a  deeper  impression  than  the 
tragedy  I  witnessed  of  a  boy  being  gradually  and 
systematically  weaned  from  the  pursuit  to  which  he 
was  passionately  devoted,  and  forced  into  a  career 
utterly  unsympathetic  and  distasteful  to  his  peculiar 
temperament. 

The  boy  was  simply,  from  head  to  foot,  a  musician. 
He  spent  every  moment  he  could  steal  from  his 
school  studies  in  playing  through  the  difficult  scores 
of  Wagner's  music  dramas.  His  taste,  his  musical 
memory,  the  enormous  natural  ability  which  enabled 
him  to  surmount  all  technical  difficulties  with  ease, 
were  apparent  to  everybody  who  knew  him.  Yet  his 
parents  determined  from  the  first  that  he  should  study 
law,  and  enter  the  legal  profession. 

I  have  never  seen  anything  more  painful  than  the 
deliberate  discouragement,  during  a  period  extend- 
ing over  several  years,  of  the  boy's  natural  bent,  and 
the  application  of  absolute  compulsion  to  force  him, 
against  every  natural  instinct,  to  prepare  himself  for 
a  profession  repugnant  to  his  inclinations,  and  for 
which  he  was  not  in  the  smallest  degree  adapted. 

Out  of  this  promising  musical  material  the  Stadt 
Gymnasium  manufactured  the  usual  piece  of  intel- 
lectual mediocrity.  He  was  stuffed  with  the  regula- 
tion measure  of  facts,  scraped  through  the  customary 
examination,  and  was  despatched,  much  against  his 
will,  to  the  universities  of  Jena  and  Zurich.  When  I 
last  saw  him  he  was  a  plodding  lawyer  of  the  con- 
ventional type,  doing  his  duties  in  a  listless  manner, 


SQUARE  PEGS  IN  ROUND  HOLES      15 

with  very  indifferent  success,  and  quite  broken  down 
in  spirit.  The  Gymnasium,  the  university,  and  the 
parental  obstinacy  had  done  their  work  very  effectually. 
They  had  succeeded  in  reducing  him  to  the  level  of 
a  machine,  and  in  all  probability  Germany  lost  an 
excellent  musician  who  might  have  given  pleasure  to 
thousands  of  others,  besides  enjoying  an  honourable 
career  of  useful  and  congenial  work. 

We  have  seen  that  between  the  stupidity  of  the 
parent  and  the  inflexibility  of  the  school  system 
■^children  have  little  chance  of  developing  their  natural 
propensities.  The  results  surround  us  everywhere, 
and  there  is  no  getting  away  from  them.  All  that 
the  school  professes  to  do  is  to  stuff  the  pupil  with  a 
certain  quantity  of  facts  according  to  a  fixed  curri- 
culum. It  does  not  pretend  to  exercise  any  other^ 
function.  There  is  no  effort  to  differentiate  between 
individuals,  or  to  discover  the  natural  bent  of  each 
particular  child.  Instruction  consists  in  cramming 
and  prescribing  by  a  more  or  less  pernicious  method — 
according  to  the  lights  of  the  particular  school^ 
authorities  in  some  cases,  and  in  others  according  to 
a  hard  and  fast  code  enforced  by  the  State — a  certain 
quantity  of  facts  into  all  pupils  without  distinction. 

Parents,  on  the  other  hand,  think  they  have  fulfilled 
their  duty  simply  by  sending  their  children  to  school. 
The  only  thing  considered  necessary  to  equip  a  child 
for  the  battle  of  life  is  to  get  him  an  education,  and 
nobody  bothers  his  head  about  the  principles  or  the 
effects  of  the  process.  The  parent  leaves  everything 
to  the  school,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  schools  do 
not  pretend  to  concern  themselves  about  the  natural 


i6  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

tendencies  of  their  pupils.  He  is  satisfied  if  his  son 
is  receiving  the  same  education  as  his  neighbour's, 
and  is  quite  contented  to  leave  the  question  of  his 
future  career  to  be  an  after-consideration. 

The  result  upon  the  world  in  general  of  this  double 
neglect  on  the  part  of  parents  and  school  systems 
is  disastrous  in  the  extreme.  In  the  first  place,  it 
makes  the  life  of  the  misplaced  individual  a  burden 
to  himself  and  to  those  by  v^rhom  he  is  surrounded. 
Natural  tendencies  cannot  be  wholly  suppressed,  even 
by  education  systems ;  and  the  victim's  existence  is 
not  rendered  more  bearable  by  the  reflection  that, 
but  for  circumstances  which  he  is  rarely  able  to 
analyze,  he  might  have  succeeded  in  some  other  and 
more  agreeable  occupation  had  he  only  received  the 
necessary  encouragement  in  his  youth. 

Secondly,  there  is  the  fact  that  the  progress  of 
civilization  is  enormously  retarded  by  its  being  rarely 
in  the  hands  of  the  most  fit.  The  most  fit  are  not, 
and  cannot  be,  produced  under  prevailing  condi- 
tions. The  whole  machinery  of  education  is  directed 
towards  the  production  of  a  dead  level  of  mediocrity. 
In  many  cases — such  as,  for  example,  in  Prussia — 
this  is  done  by  design,  and  not  by  accident.  Instruc- 
tion is  imparted  in  such  a  manner  that  no  regard  is 
paid  to  individual  propensities.  All  are  subjected, 
more  or  less,  to  the  same  process.  They  are  fitted 
for  nothing  in  particular,  and  no  trouble  is  taken  to 
ascertain  the  direction  in  which  an  individual  mind 
should  be  developed.  The  consequence  is  that,  from 
one  end  of  the  civilized  world  to  the  other,  resounds 
the  cry,  '  What  shall  we  do  with  our  boys  ?' 


SQUARE  PEGS  IN  ROUND  HOLES      17 

And,  lastly,  it  scarcely  requires  pointing  out  that 
the  enormous  sums  of  money  spent  by  Governments, 
by  municipalities,  and  by  private  persons  upon  educa- 
tion, in  order  to  produce  this  lamentable  state  of 
affairs,  is  so  much  waste  and  extravagance.  Not  only 
does  it  bring  in  no  practical  return,  but  it  works  out 
in  a  precisely  opposite  direction.  Schools  and  colleges 
that  only  serve  to  produce  anomalous  and  unnatural 
social  conditions,  that  stifle  genius  and  talent,  and 
that  cause  widespread  misery  among  the  unsuitably 
educated,  must  be  reckoned  as  a  national  loss. 

People  deplore  the  heavy  sums  spent  on  armaments 
and  on  the  maintenance  of  enormous  fleets  and 
armies  ;  but  it  may  be  doubted  if  this  expenditure  is 
as  costly  in  the  end  as  that  which  goes  to  support  a 
systematic  manufacture  of  the  unfit,  and  to  assist  in 
the  distribution  of  individuals  to  stations  in  the  social 
scheme  for  which  they  are  wholly  unsuited. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   DESTRUCTION   OF   GENIUS 

Most  people  labour  under  the  delusion  that  genius 
only  makes  its  appearance  twice  or  thrice  during  a 
generation.  It  is  certainly  the  fact  that  a  Napoleon, 
a  Shakespeare,  or  a  Beethoven,  is  only  born  once  in 
a  century ;  and  colossal  intellects  such  as  these  are 
rightly  regarded  as  unnatural  phenomena.  But 
genius  of  a  less  high  order  is  far  more  common  than 
is  generally  supposed.  People  are  simply  blind  to  it. 
Although  it  surrounds  them  on  all  sides,  they  fail  to 
recognise  it.  And  nearly  everybody  is  busily  engaged 
in  helping  to  destroy  it,  with  a  perversity  that  is  as 
unconscious  as  it  is  criminal. 

Those  who  have  had  the  opportunity  of  observing 
the  mental  development  of  an  intelligent  child  that 
has  not  been  subjected  to  the  ordinary  processes  of 
teaching,  must  have  been  struck  with  the  originality 
of  its  mind.  If  children  are  left  to  themselves,  they 
will  breed  ideas  at  an  astonishing  rate.  Give  an 
imaginative  child  of  five  or  six  some  simple  object, 
such  as  a  button  or  a  piece  of  tape,  and  it  will  weave 
round  it  a  web  of  romance  that  would  put  many 
a  poet  or  author  to  shame. 

Naturally  brought  up  children  will  chatter  fasci- 


THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  GENIUS        19 

nating  nonsense  to  the  very  motes  that  float  in  a 
sunbeam  ;  they  will  spin  an  Odyssey  out  of  the 
most  trivial  incident  that  has  chanced  to  impress 
them.  Every  commonplace  object  will  be  invested 
by  them  with  mysterious  and  fantastic  attributes. 
When  left  to  observe  facts  for  themselves,  they  will 
develop  powers  of  reasoning  and  logic  which  no 
amount  of  cramming  and  caning  would  ever  succeed 
in  driving  into  them. 

There  are  probably  few  parents  who  have  not  been 
startled,  at  some  period  or  another,  by  hearing  from 
the  lips  of  a  child  an  original  reflection  that  exhibited 
an  unexpected  degree  of  mental  development.  Did  it 
ever  occur  to  them  that  some  intellectual  process  must 
have  been  going  on  in  the  child's  mind  to  produce 
such  powers  of  observation  or  thought  ?  There  is  a 
fallacious  notion,  founded  upon  pure  want  of  observa- 
tion, that  human  beings  are  unable  to  form  ideas  or 
to  think  for  themselves  until  they  have  been  put 
through  an  elaborate  course  of  mental  gymnastics. 
A  great  deal  of  the  process  misnamed  education  is 
directed  towards  this  end,  with  the  result  that  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  brain  is  simply  paralyzed 
and  rendered  incapable  of  performing  its  proper 
functions. 

The  fact  is,  that  people,  whether  young  or  old, 
cannot  be  forced  to  think.  It  is  a  habit  that  must 
come  of  its  own  accord,  and  that  can  only  be  stimu- 
lated by  the  most  delicately -applied  influences. 
Observant  and  reflective  parents,  who  have  not 
chosen  to  leave  the  entire  development  and  up- 
bringing of  their  children  in  the  hands  of  nurses, 

2 — 2 


20  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

will  have  noticed  that  there  is  a  natural  tendency 
on  the  part  of  a  child,  if  not  interfered  with,  to 
think  and  to  expand  its  faculty  of  imagination. 
This  tendency  is  not  shared  to  an  equal  extent  by 
all  children ;  there  are,  of  course,  dissimilarities 
caused  by  varying  degrees  of  intelligence.  But  it 
is  there,  in  however  rudimentary  and  undeveloped 
a  stage  ;  and  the  more  backward  it  appears  to  be, 
the  more  care  should  be  taken  not  to  destroy  it  or 
to  check  its  natural  growth. 

Now,  the  whole  machinery  of  education  is  brought 
to  bear,  from  the  moment  the  child  is  of  an  age  to 
receive  any  instruction,  to  strangle  the  development 
of  the  thinking  and  imaginative  faculties.  That 
process  will  be  described  presently.  What  I  wish 
to  point  out  first  is  that,  long  before  the  school  or 
the  governess  commences  this  operation,  the  parents 
of  the  child,  or  those  to  whom  they  have  delegated 
the  duty  of  taking  charge  of  it  during  the  tenderest 
and  most  momentous  years  of  its  existence,  are 
generally  engaged  in  doing  everything  they  can  to 
bring  about  the  same  pernicious  result. 

Of  course  the  evil  is  committed  in  sheer  ignorance. 
But  it  has  been  bred  for  so  many  generations  that  in- 
dividual judgment  and  common  sense  must  every  day 
be  becoming  more  rare.  Therefore  the  evil  spreads, 
and  people  blame  the  introduction  of  railways  and 
other  mechanical  improvements  for  the  diminishing 
supply  of  artistic  and  creative  genius,  whilst  they  are 
in  reality  themselves  busily  employed  in  stifling  its 
development. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  this  unhappy  result 


THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  GENIUS       21 

is  brought  about.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the 
invariable  custom  of  giving  young  children  toys 
which,  far  from  stimulating  the  imagination,  only 
serve  to  impress  upon  their  minds  the  commonplace 
facts  of  everyday  life.  It  is  really,  only  in  a  different 
form,  a  part  of  the  process  by  which,  later  on,  the 
education  system  drives  out  ideas  and  crams  in  facts. 

To  take  a  concrete  instance,  a  doll  is  the  plaything 
usually  given  to  little  girls.  At  first  sight  nothing 
can  appear  more  charming  or  instructive  than  the 
gift  to  a  little  girl,  who  will  one  day  be  a  wife  and  a 
mother,  of  the  miniature  representation  of  a  baby. 
There  will  be  a  bath  provided,  in  which  she  may 
learn  to  wash  it.  Everything  will  be  complete — 
soap,  sponge,  loofah,  puff-box,  and  powder.  The 
present  will  be  accompanied  by  a  layette^  so  that  the 
child  may  learn  to  dress  her  infant  and  to  change  its 
clothes.  Hair-brushes  will  teach  her  to  keep  the  doll's 
hair  neat ;  and  probably  a  dozen  other  toilet  requisites, 
of  which  the  masculine  mind  has  no  notion  or  is 
expected  to  affect  ignorance,  will  be  found  ready  at 
hand  to  inculcate  the  lesson  of  nursery  routine. 

In  this  ingenious  way  the  materialistic  side  of  life 
is  deliberately  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  child. 
Everything  is  providently  supplied  that  would  be 
calculated  to  occupy  her  attention  with  common- 
place facts  instead  of  with  fancies.  The  child  is 
not  encouraged  to  make  a  living  creature  of  this 
inanimate  dummy,  to  tell  it  stories,  or  to  exercise  her 
imagination  in  some  other  way.  She  is  provided  with 
a  round  of  prosaic  and  extremely  material  duties,  and 
her  mind  is  carefully  kept  within  these  bounds  by 


22  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

details  of  soap  and  feeding-bottles,  which  do  not  offer 
scope  for  any  flight  of  imagination. 

It  would  be  far  better  to  place  a  bundle  of  rags  in 
the  arms  of  a  little  girl,  and  to  tell  her  to  imagine  it 
to  be  a  baby.  She  would,  if  left  to  herself,  with  no 
other  resource  than  her  own  invention,  soon  learn  to 
exercise  her  dormant  powers  of  imagination  and 
originality. 

With  the  same  lack  of  forethought  boys  are  sur- 
rounded from  earliest  infancy  with  objects  designed 
to  keep  their  minds  within  the  narrow  limits  of  fact. 
Their  playthings  are  ships,  fire-engines,  miniature 
railways,  water-pumps,  and  such-like.  The  imagina- 
tion is  allowed  as  little  play  as  possible.  Interest  is 
carefully  concentrated  upon  the  mechanical  details  of 
spars,  sails,  rigging,  watertight  compartments,  wheels, 
rods,  cranks,  levers,  and  the  thousand-and-one  items 
which  go  to  make  up  a  mechanical  contrivance. 
Great  care  is  taken  in  constructing  toy  models  to 
reproduce  at  least  the  chief  points  of  the  original,  in 
order  to  give  them  a  supposititious  educational  value. 
The  parents  then  fondly  imagine  that,  in  stocking  the 
nursery  with  these  abominations,  they  are  largely 
assisting  in  the  development  of  the  boy's  mind. 

To  people  who  do  not  understand  children  it  is 
difficult  to  convey  any  adequate  idea  of  the  fatal 
result  produced  upon  the  dawning  intellect  by  this 
introduction  of  materialism  into  the  nursery.  The 
imaginative  will  at  once  say  that  the  contention 
is  too  far  fetched.  Certainly  the  pernicious  effects  of 
such  toys  as  have  been  described  are  not  easily  dis- 
cernible ;  therein  lies  the  insidiousness  of  this  retard- 


THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  GENIUS       23 

ing  process.  But  to  those  who  have  watched,  as  I 
have  done,  the  natural  development  of  an  intelligent 
child's  powers  of  reflection  and  imagination — un- 
checked by  dolls  or  toy  locomotives — there  will  be 
neither  absurdity  nor  exaggeration  in  what  I  have 
written. 

Toys  in  themselves  are  harmless  and  unobjection- 
able things,  though  every  observant  person  who  has  had 
much  to  do  with  young  children  will  readily  concede 
how  superfluous  they  are  as  a  means  of  amusement. 
The  average  child  will  treasure  up  a  button  or  a  shell 
long  after  it  has  destroyed,  or  maybe  forgotten  the 
existence  of,  the  most  elaborate  and  expensive  toy. 
That  is  a  commonplace  of  the  nursery.  But  it  does 
not  seem  to  convey  either  meaning  or  moral  to  the 
majority  of  parents. 

The  second  way  in  which  the  thinking  and  imagi- 
native faculties  are  impeded  in  their  development  is 
by  the  discouragement  of,  or  by  the  injudicious 
answers  given  to,  the  questions  asked  by  children. 
At  a  certain  age  the  latter  become  inquisitive  about 
everything  in  the  universe.  They  ply  their  elders 
with  perpetual  questioning ;  and  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  many  of  their  interrogations  are  highly 
inconvenient  and  unanswerable. 

It  is  very  difficult  for  the  average  person  to  reply 
offhand  to  elementary  questions  such  as,  Why  does 
the  sun  shine  ?  What  makes  the  wind  blow  ?  How 
does  a  seed  grow  into  a  tree?  and  so  forth.  Few 
people  have  the  patience  to  answer  the  numerous 
inquiries  of  an  intelligent  child  ;  and  sooner  than 
expose  their  ignorance,  parents  will  generally  quench 


24  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

this  thirst  for  knowledge  at  the  outset  by  a  flat 
prohibition.  The  selfish  desire  for  peace  prompts 
them  to  refuse  the  solicited  information  altogether, 
or,  worse  still,  to  return  answers  calculated  to  kill 
imaginative  ideas  or  to  impress  the  child's  mind  with 
a  bare  and  prosaic  materialism. 

They  do  not  stop  to  think  of  the  immense  harm 
that  may  be  done  to  the  child  by  throwing  cold 
water  upon  its  first  attempts  at  research.  Children, 
it  must  be  remembered,  do  not  possess  the  perse- 
verance and  determination  which  often  come  to  the 
rescue  of  original  genius  at  a  later  period.  However 
active  their  minds  may  be,  they  are  also  timid,  and 
shrink  back  quickly  under  the  influence  of  unsympa- 
thetic treatment. 

The  fact  should  be  patent  to  everybody  that 
children  strive  constantly  to  use  the  brains  with 
which  Nature  has  endowed  them.  Being  naturally 
imaginative  and  original,  these  faculties  only  need 
ordinary  encouragement  to  develop  and  flourish. 
Yet  the  entire  method  of  bringing  up  children,  from 
the  cradle  to  the  school  bench,  is  directed  towards 
stifling  all  originality  and  substituting  for  it  a  stock 
of  commonplace  ideas  and  conventional  knowledge. 

The  process  is  begun  at  home.  It  takes  its  root  in 
conventionality,  the  curse  of  all  individuality  and 
progress.  Parents,  brought  up  to  be  the  slaves  of 
custom,  carry  on  the  imbecile  traditions  that  have 
been  handed  down  to  them  from  former  generations, 
without  stopping  to  consider  whether  they  are  rational 
or  foolish.  It  is  good  enough  for  the  majority  of 
people  that  the  imbecile  things  they  do  were  done  by 


THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  GENIUS       25 

their  forefathers  before  them;  and  no  tradition  is 
more  rigidly  followed  than  that  which  prescribes  the 
manner  of  bringing  up  children. 

It  would  have  been  thought  that  those  who  had 
themselves  suffered  from  the  effects  of  bad  methods 
would  be  careful  not  to  repeat  the  mistakes  with  their 
own  children.  But  that  is  the  worst  aspect  of  the 
evil.  Its  chief  operation  consists  in  hedging  round 
the  intelligence  with  conventionalities  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  exclude  vigorous  and  independent 
thought.  The  most  intelligent  people  often  find  the 
utmost  difficulty  in  attempting  to  shake  off  the  pre- 
judices inculcated  during  the  early  years  of  life. 

Many,  before  accomplishing  this  end,  have  had  to 
pass  through  a  long  period  of  suffering  and  adversity. 
But  the  average  mind  is  generally  a  hopeless  case. 
There  must  be  strong  inward  impulses,  or  the  neces- 
sary measure  of  initiative  and  courage  will  not  be 
forthcoming.  Everybody  who  chooses  to  think  for 
himself  knows  that  it  is  an  operation  which  does  not 
usually  entail  pleasant  consequences. 

So  much  for  the  part  played  by  the  parent.  The 
school  system  stands  on  a  different  plane  altogether, 
and  must  be  considered  by  itself.  For  parents  there 
is,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  a  certain  amount  of 
excuse.     For  the  school  system  there  is  none. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HUMAN   FACTORIES 

Distinction  must  be  made,  of  course,  in  discussing 
the  effects  of  teaching  methods  upon  children, 
between  the  various  kinds  of  schools,  and  between 
public  instruction  and  private  tuition.  It  would  not 
be  fair  to  lump  them  all  together,  for  the  evils  they 
produce  are  by  no  means  distributed  by  them  in 
equal  proportion.  One  must  differentiate.  Funda- 
mentally, all  education  is  proceeding  on  a  false 
principle.  In  this  respect  it  is  necessary  to  blame 
education  systems,  institutions,  school  teachers,  tutors, 
governesses,  and  parents  alike;  for  all  are  engaged  in 
keeping  up  an  educational  delusion  that  is  working 
great  harm  to  the  world  in  general. 

But  when  we  come  to  consider  the  amount  of  evil 
produced  by  each  of  these  factors,  it  will  be  seen  at 
once  that  there  is  a  good  deal  to  choose  between 
them.  The  private  tutor,  under  present  methods  of 
teaching,  is  in  a  far  better  position  to  encourage  the 
individual  development  of  a  child  than  is  the  school- 
master who  has  the  care  of  a  class.  Children  can 
contend,  to  a  certain  extent,  against  the  tyranny  of 
the  tutor ;  they  can  force  their  own  wishes  upon  his 
attention  should  they  possess  the  necessary  strength 


HUMAN  FACTORIES  27 

of  character.  But  the  strongest  must  succumb  to  the 
school  system.  Here  there  is  no  latitude  to  par- 
ticular pupils,  no  concession  made  to  idiosyncrasies 
of  mind  or  character.  The  system  must  not  be 
relaxed,  and  in  consequence  everybody  has  to  be 
subjected  to  precisely  the  same  course  of  study. 

Children  begin  to  receive  instruction  at  a  very 
early  age.  The  usual  plan  is  to  take  a  child  the 
moment  it  is  able  to  string  enough  words  together  to 
form  ideas,  and  to  subject  it  to  a  methodical  process 
of  teaching.  The  custom  of  beginning  what  is  called 
a  child's  education  at  a  tender  age  is  verified  by  the 
fact  that  the  State  now  compels,  or  rather  pretends 
to  compel,  parents  to  send  their  children  to  school  at 
the  age  of  five,  whilst  large  numbers  of  the  children 
of  the  poor  are  voluntarily  sent  to  school  at  three 
years  of  age,  or  even  younger.  It  will  be  observed, 
therefore,  that  the  State,  as  far  as  the  masses  of  the 
people  are  concerned,  takes  the  child  in  hand  at  the  ' 
most  impressionable  period  of  its  existence. 

The  instruction  of  infants  is  not  a  very  difficult 
task,  if  all  that  is  aimed  at  is  to  teach  them  certain 
elementary  subjects.  At  five  years  of  age  children 
will  generally  learn  with  avidity.  Their  minds  are 
just  sufficiently  formed  to  be  receptive,  and  as  all 
knowledge  is  a  blank  to  them  they  are  ready  to 
learn  anything,  within  the  limits  of  their  comprehen- 
sion, that  the  teacher  may  choose  to  put  before  them. 
This  would  place  upon  the  latter  a  very  heavy  re- 
sponsibility if  the  matter  were  left  entirely  to  his  dis- 
cretion. But  this  is  by  no  means  the  case ;  the 
course  of  instruction  is  fixed  beforehand  by  the  school 


28  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

managers.  It  may  differ  slightly  in  schools  of  vary- 
ing types;  but  in  the  main  it  is  identical  in  all  the 
essentials. 

To  what  extent  this  variation  may  occur  is,  how- 
ever, entirely  beside  the  point.  What  should  be 
noted  in  this  connection  is  that  each  school,  and 
for  the  matter  of  that  every  private  teacher,  has  a 
fixed  plan  of  instruction  which  is  more  or  less  rigidly 
enforced.  In  the  case  of  the  school,  as  has  already 
been  stated,  no  attention  whatever  is  paid  to  indi- 
vidual requirements.  All  are  subjected  to  exactly^ 
the  same  process,  for  better  or  for  worse.  The  child, 
therefore,  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  attend  school  is 
compelled  to  learn  certain  things. 

The  stock  subjects  are  reading,  writing,  and  arith- 
metic. They  are  necessary  accomplishments  in  all 
stations  of  life,  and  education  without  them  would  be 
practically  impossible.  I  do  not  disparage  them  in 
the  least.  But  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  about 
the  method  of  teaching  them,  and  the  grave  error  of 
making  them  the  principal  objective  of  elementary 
teaching. 

In  this  connection  it  is  both  interesting  and  in- 
structive to  note  a  significant  alteration  in  the  Day 
School  Code  issued  by  the  Board  of  Education. 
Until  quite  recently  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic 
were  classed  under  the  Code  as  '  obligatory  subjects  ' 
in  infant  schools.  Article  15  of  the  Code  now  reads  : 
'The  course  of  instruction  in  infant  schools  and 
classes  should,  as  a  rule,  include — Suitable  in- 
struction, writing,  and  numbers,'  etc.  Compare  this 
with  the  same  passage  contained   in  former  Codes. 


HUMAN  FACTORIES  29 

*  The  subjects  of  instruction/  it  runs,  *  for  which 
grants  may  be  made  are  the  following :  (a)  OBLIGA- 
TORY Subjects  —  Reading,  writing,  arithmetic  ; 
hereinafter  called  *'  the  elementary  subjects,"  '  etc. 

This  amendment  is  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
nothing  can  be  more  detrimental  to  education  than 
hard-and-fast  rules.  It  is  a  protest  against  the 
general  assumption  that  the  curricula  of  schools  must 
be  of  a  more  or  less  uniform  pattern,  and  puts  an 
end  to  the  absurdity  of  the  central  authority  pre- 
scribing subjects  to  be  taught  in  all  elementary  schools, 
regardless  of  varying  circumstances  or  the  possibility 
of  improved  methods  of  teaching. 

Formerly  the  pernicious  custom  existed  of  examin- 
ing the  pupils,  at  the  annual  visit  of  the  inspector,  in 
stereotyped  subjects.  Matthew  Arnold,  reporting  to 
the  Education  Department  in  1867,  observed  :  *  The 
mode  of  teaching  in  the  primary  schools  has  certainly 
fallen  off  in  intelligence,  spirit,  and  inventiveness 
during  the  four  or  five  years  which  have  elapsed  since 
my  last  report.  It  could  not  well  be  otherwise.  In 
a  country  where  everyone  is  prone  to  rely  too  much 
on  mechanical  processes,  and  too  little  on  intelligence, 
a  change  in  the  Education  Department's  regulations, 
which,  by  making  two-thirds  of  the  Government 
grant  depend  upon  a  mechanical  examination,  inevit- 
ably gives  a  mechanical  turn  to  the  school  teaching, 
a  mechanical  turn  to  the  inspection,  is,  and  must  be, 
trying  to  the  intellectual  life  of  the  school.  In  the 
inspection  the  mechanical  examination  of  individual 
scholars  in  reading  a  short  passage,  writing  a  short 
passage,  and  working  two  or  three  sums,  cannot  but 


30  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

take  the  lion's  share  of  room  and  importance,  inas- 
much as  two-thirds  of  the  Government  grant  depend 
upon  it.  .  .  .  In  the  game  of  mechanical  contri- 
vances the  teachers  will  in  the  end  beat  us ;  and  as  it 
is  now  found  possible,  by  ingenious  preparation,  to 
.get  children  through  the  Revised  Code  examination 
in  reading,  writing,  and  ciphering  without  their  really 
knowing  how  to  read,  write,  and  cipher,  so  it  will 
with  practice  no  doubt  be  found  possible  to  get  the 
three-fourths  of  the  one-fifth  of  the  children  over  six 
through  the  examination  in  grammar,  geography, 
and  history  without  their  really  knowing  any  one  of 
these  three  matters.' 

Throughout  the  whole  of  his  career  as  an  inspector 
of  elementary  schools  Arnold  had  to  reiterate  this 
complaint  again  and  again.  He  saw  the  incentive 
to  cramming  provided  by  the  mode  of  distributing 
the  grants,  and  he  perceived  the  uselessness  of  the 
type  of  instruction  engendered  by  it. 

To-day  all  this  has  been  changed.  There  is  no 
such  thing  now  as  a  compulsory  annual  examination 
in  the  three  elementary  subjects.  It  has  been  finally 
abolished  by  the  central  authority.  The  duty  of  the 
inspectors  is  no  longer  to  examine  the  children,  but 
to  investigate  the  methods  of  teaching,  the  qualifica- 
tions of  the  teachers,  and  so  forth.  They  are,  it  is 
true,  empowered  to  examine  children  when  they 
think  it  advisable  to  do  so  ;  but  they  are  directed 
to  use  this  power  sparingly,  and  in  exceptional 
cases. 

The  Department  at  Whitehall  does  not,  unfortu- 
nately, exist  for  the  purpose  of  abolishing  education 


HUMAN  FACTORIES  31 

systems.  It  has  been  called  into  existence  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  distributing  grants  of  public  money 
in  aid  of  elementary  education  and  for  the  support 
of  training-colleges  for  teachers.  The  exercise  of 
this  function  has  necessitated  the  framing  of  a  code 
of  regulations  to  be  observed  by  schools  wishing  to 
qualify  themselves  for  the  grant.  This  code  is  re- 
vised each  year,  and  has  undergone  some  remarkable 
changes  of  late.  There  is  a  distinct  tendency  to 
make  it  as  elastic  as  possible,  with  the  obvious  aim  of 
encouraging  variety  in  the  schools  and  in  the  methods 
of  teaching. 

For  an  example  of  this  tendency  one  need  only 
compare  the  present  conditions  attaching  to  the  pay- 
ment of  the  principal  grant  to  infant  schools  with 
those  that  were  in  force  a  few  years  ago.  The  higher 
grant  was  formerly  given  if  the  scholars  were  taught 
under  a  certificated  teacher,  or  under  a  teacher  not 
less  than  eighteen  years  of  age,  approved  by  the 
inspector,  and  in  a  room  properly  constructed  and 
furnished  for  the  instruction  of  infants.  There  was 
also  a  proviso  that  the  infants  should  be  taught 
*  suitably  to  their  age.'  The  new  code  contains  the 
following  regulation  : 

'A  principal  grant  of  17s.  or  i6s.  is  made  to  infant 
schools  and  classes.  The  Board  shall  decide  which, 
if  either,  of  these  grants  shall  be  paid  after  consider- 
ing the  report  and  recommendation  of  the  inspector 
upon  each  of  the  following  four  points :  (a)  The 
suitability  of  the  instruction  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  children  and  the  neighbourhood  ;  (6)  the 
thoroughness  and  intelligence  with  which  the  instruc- 


32  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

tion  is  given  ;  {c)  the  sufficiency  and  suitability  of  the 
staff ;  (d)  the  discipline  and  organization.' 

Working  in  this  spirit,  the  Board  of  Education  is 
able  to  mitigate  some  of  the  evils  of  a  State  system. 
But  it  cannot  attack  them  at  the  roots  without 
initiating  a  complete  revolution.  Out  and  out  re- 
forms of  this  kind  are  only  politically  practicable 
when  they  are  demanded  by  the  irresistible  voice  of 
a  strong  public  opinion.  The  public  are  misled  as  to 
the  true  issues  by  the  intrigues  of  political  parties. 
The  conflict  is  narrowed  down  by  party  politicians, 
who  have  particular  interests  to  serve,  to  a  mere 
squabble  about  school  boards,  voluntary  schools, 
local  authorities,  and  religious  instruction. 

The  consequence  is  that  these  side  issues  have 
come  to  be  regarded  as  the  great  education  question 
of  the  day.  It  is  not  easy  to  stir  up  any  deep  feel- 
ing about  the  comparative  merits  of  the  two  classes 
of  elementary  schools.  Most  people  do  not  care  a 
jot  whether  their  children  go  to  one  or  the  other.  It 
is  not  the  masses  who  agitate  about  denominational 
or  secular  teaching,  but  those  limited  classes  who 
have  some  direct  interest  in  matters  affecting 
religion. 

But  who  would  not  cast  aside  their  lethargy,  if 
they  were  made  to  understand  that  the  question  to 
be  decided  is  not  whether  this  or  that  type  of  school 
should  be  supported,  but  whether  the  present  system 
of  education  should  be  entirely  discarded  in  favour 
of  an  altogether  new  plan  ?  that  behind  all  these 
petty  controversies  lie  great  issues,  affecting  the 
jundamental  principles  of  education,  which  must  be 


HUMAN  FACTORIES  33 

pushed  to  the  front  unless  the  degeneration  of  the 
race — an  inevitable  result  of  the  present  educational 
method — is  to  be  continued  indefinitely  ? 

Let  people  consider  for  a  moment  what  is  effected 
by  the  present  system.  The  child,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  taken  by  the  State  at  an  early  age  and  subjected, 
for  the  most  part,  to  a  careful  drilling  in  the  three 
elementary  subjects.  There  is  no  harm  in  knowing 
how  to  read  and  write  ;  it  is  a  very  necessary  accom- 
plishment. A  little  arithmetic  is  also  indispensable 
to  the  fulfilment  of  many  of  the  commonest  duties  of 
everyday  life.  But,  apart  from  the  iniquity  of  cram- 
ming or  forcing  the  brain  in  a  particular  direction,  it 
must  be  recollected  that  by  imposing  certain  subjects 
upon  the  undeveloped  mind  of  a  child,  others  are 
necessarily  excluded.  The  process  therefore,  when 
rigidly  carried  out,  has  very  serious  and  far-reaching 
effects.  It  prevents  the  development  of  the  mind  in 
any  direction  but  that  which  is  being  enforced. 

The  harm  done  to  the  individual  child  by  this 
means  is  incalculable.  On  the  very  threshold  of  the 
development  of  its  faculties  according  to  natural 
instincts  this  development  is  violently  arrested  by  an 
artificial  operation.  Nor  does  the  evil  end  here. 
This  interference  with  Nature  is  carried  on  through- 
out the  whole  school  career  of  the  child,  and  the 
tradition  flourishes  in  a  modified  form  in  the  colleges 
and  universities.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  vital  principle  of 
modern  education. 

These  schools  in  which  the  children  of  the  people 
are  taught  are  nothing  more  than  factories  for  turning 
out  a  uniformly-patterned  article.     They  do  not  suc- 

3 


34  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

ceed  in  their  object  of  conferring  what  is  called  an 
education  upon  their  pupils,  but  they  contrive  to 
drive  out  all  original  ideas  without  implanting  any- 
useful  knowledge  in  their  place.  The  general  result 
of  this  wholesale  manufacture  of  dummies  will  be 
dealt  with  directly.  The  intention  here  is  merely 
to  point  out  that  the  practical  working  of  the 
machinery  of  State  education  is  to  check  the  natural 
development  of  the  mind,  and  to  unfit  those  whom 
it  has  victimized,  not  only  for  one,  but  for  all  occu- 
pations that  demand  manual  dexterity  or  practical 
intelligence. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  GREATEST   MISERY   OF   THE   GREATEST 
NUMBER 

It  is  now  time  to  consider  the  effect  of  this  system  of 
compulsory  education  upon  the  masses  of  the  people. 
In  the  first  two  chapters  an  attempt  was  made  to 
sketch  some  of  the  anomalies  brought  about  by  the 
educational  methods  of  our  public  schools  and  uni- 
versities, and  by  the  pernicious  system  of  public  com- 
petitive examinations.  We  will  now  turn  our  atten- 
tion exclusively  to  the  masses,  and  endeavour  to  see 
what  national  instruction  does  for  them. 

The  common  people  labour  under  the  delusion  that 
children  who  have  passed  the  standards  of  an  elemen- 
tary school  are  educated.  They  have  been  fitted, 
according  to  the  popular  belief,  for  a  superior  station 
in  life.  The  first  ambition  of  parents  is,  therefore, 
for  their  child  to  obtain  a  post  suitable  to  its  supposed 
scholarship. 

Of  course,  the  truth  is,  as  we  all  know,  that  the 
product  of  the  public  elementary  school  is  utterly 
useless,  and  generally  wanting  in  intelligence.  But 
these  facts  are  only  discovered  by  the  victims  them- 
selves after  years  of  bitter  experience.  Totally  un- 
fitted  for  any  station  in  life,  many  of  them  leave 

3—2 


36  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

school  full  of  self-confidence  in  the  belief  that  their 
superior  education  will  secure  them  a  good  opening. 
Despising  all  manual  labour,  they  seek  situations  as 
clerks,  shop-assistants,  and  such-like.  The  result  is, 
of  course,  an  over-supply  of  candidates  for  employ- 
ment of  this  kind.  In  consequence,  the  girls  have  to 
fall  back  upon  domestic  service ;  while  the  boys  swell 
the  ranks  of  unskilled  labourers  and  unemployed 
loafers,  or,  worse  still,  betake  themselves  to  a  life  of 
dishonesty. 

Nowhere  are  the  evil  effects  of  this  education 
system  more  strikingly  illustrated  than  in  the  country 
districts.  The  children  of  agricultural  labourers  and 
small  farmers  are  given  instruction  which  will  be  of 
no  earthly  use  to  them  in  the  occupation  for  which 
they  are  naturally  fitted.  Instead  of  being  prepared 
for  country  pursuits,  they  are  given  an  inferior  type 
of  all-round  education  which  is  equally  useless  every- 
where. When  they  leave  school  they  can  read,  write, 
add,  subtract,  divide,  and  multiply — after  a  fashion  ; 
they  can  mispronounce  a  few  French  words,  without 
being  able  to  construct  a  single  grammatical  sentence 
or  understand  a  syllable  that  is  said  to  them  ;  they 
know  enough  shorthand  to  write  down  simple  words 
at  one  half  the  speed  of  ordinary  handwriting ;  and 
they  have  acquired  by  rote  a  few  dry  facts  from 
history  and  geography,  all  of  which  will  be  totally 
obliterated  from  their  memories  within  a  space  of 
twelve  months. 

Shorthand  is  not  a  very  promising  preparation  for 
the  plough  ;  and  French  and  mathematics  are  equally 
valueless  accomplishments  for  the  carting  of  manure. 


THE  GREATEST  MISERY  37 

Dairymaids  need  neither  history  nor  geography ; 
they  can  even  do  without  grammar.  Consequently 
these  unhappy  school-children  have  been  rendered 
useless  for  all  the  practical  purposes  of  the  life  they 
ought  to  lead.  The  result  is  inevitable.  There  is  a 
constant,  never-ceasing  exodus  from  the  country  into 
the  towns.  The  rural  school  victims  are  incited  to 
look  for  employment  in  an  altogether  different  sphere 
from  that  for  which  nature  originally  intended  them. 

Philosophers  and  politicians  crack  their  heads  over 
this  mysterious  problem  of  town  immigration  ;  but 
it  is  really  a  very  simple  affair.  We  are  pretending 
to  educate  the  rural  population  by  conferring  upon 
them  the  blessings  of  French  and  shorthand.  The 
natural  consequence  of  our  excellent  foresight  in 
spreading  this  type  of  culture  throughout  the  land 
is  that  there  is  a  scarcely  remarkable  dearth  of  rural 
labour.  Farm  hands  are  not  quite  as  plentiful  as 
they  used  to  be,  and  there  is  some  difficulty  in  getting 
damsels  to  churn  butter.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  are  driving  this  mob  of  cultured  yokels  into  the 
towns  to  crowd  out  local  labour,  to  starve,  and  to  fill 
the  gaols  and  workhouses. 

London  has  at  the  present  moment  mainly  to 
thank  this  process  of  '  education  '  for  the  overcrowd- 
ing problem  which  is  becoming  every  day  more 
dangerous  and  pressing.  It  is  useless  to  talk  of 
pulling  down  slums  and  building  up  model  blocks,  or 
of  inventing  fresh  means  of  communication  to  convey 
artisans  to  suburban  dwellings,  whilst  the  real  cause 
of  the  evil  is  left  untouched.  Young  men  and  women 
will  continue  to  pour  in  from  the  country  districts  as 


38  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

long  as  a  smattering  of  geography  and  arithmetic 
flatters  them  into  the  delusion  that  they  are  educated, 
and  that  knowledge  of  the  useless  kind  that  has  been 
drummed  into  them  is  the  high-road  to  fortune. 

It  is,  however,  of  little  use  to  urge  overcrowding 
as  a  ground  for  reforming  educational  methods.  Few 
people  are  stirred  by  what  to  them  is  a  purely 
abstract  question.  They  see  nothing  to  indicate  its 
existence,  and  they  know  nothing  of  its  evils.  They 
seldom  walk  down  the  dreary  avenues  of  bricks  and 
mortar  which  contain  the  houses  of  the  working 
classes  ;  and  if  they  do,  they  scarcely  realize  the  fact 
that  inside  the  humble,  dingy  little  dwellings  whole 
families  are  crowded  into  single  rooms,  share  each 
other's  beds,  and  are  even  thankful  to  find  sleeping 
accommodation  upon  the  floor. 

But  everybody  appreciates  and  understands  the 
servant  question.  That  touches  the  comfort  of  the 
individual  too  nearly  to  be  ignored.  The  rapid 
extinction  of  good  servants,  the  insolence  and 
inefficiency  of  the  average  domestic — these  are  facts 
of  everyday  life  that  will  come  home  to  the  suff'ering 
upper  and  middle  classes.  It  is  not  because  they 
are  educated  that  domestic  servants  have  deteriorated, 
however,  but  on  account  of  the  profound  state  of 
ignorance  in  which  their  elementary  schooling  has  left 
them,  leading  them  to  the  misapprehension  that,  from 
the  standpoint  of  culture,  they  are  as  good  as  any- 
body and  certainly  above  their  menial  position. 

Servants  have  as  little  need  of  French  verbs  and 
hieroglyphics  as  the  ploughboy  or  the  dairymaid. 
There  are  many  useful  things  that  might  be  learnt 


THE  GREATEST  MISERY  39 

by  a  person  who  wished  to  be  trained  for  domestic 
service;  but  it  is  rare  enough  to  find  a  cook  that, 
amongst  other  items  of  a  liberal  education,  has  been 
given  cooking  lessons.  In  this  respect  education  is 
like  food :  what  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison.  We  do  not  wish  to  teach  book-keeping  to  a 
washerwoman,  or  fancy  ironing  to  a  private  secretary. 
Then,  why  stuff  artisans,  domestic  servants,  and  farm 
labourers  with  common  denominators  and  the  rules 
of  syntax  ?  It  may  be  highly  satisfactory  to  school- 
teachers to  succeed  in  making  their  class  read  aloud 
passages  from  Shakespeare  and  Milton  without  drop- 
ping more  than  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  aspirates,  or 
mispronouncing  more  than  half  a  dozen  multi-syllabic 
words.  But,  unfortunately,  there  is  no  demand  for 
parlourmaids  who  can  quote  '  Hamlet '  amid  the 
intervals  of  waiting  at  table,  or  for  page-boys  capable 
of  spouting  *  Paradise  Lost  '  for  the  intellectual  im- 
provement of  the  servants'  hall. 

Perhaps  these  instances  show  as  well  as  anything 
the  grotesque  absurdity  of  collecting  a  number  of 
children  together,  and  attempting  to  teach  them 
things  that  they  are  not  fitted  to  do,  whilst  no  effort 
is  made  to  cultivate  in  each  individual  the  faculties 
that  are  really  capable  of  development.  It  is  not  in 
the  least  surprising  that  occupations  involving  manual 
labour  are  for  the  most  part  filled  with  dissatisfied 
and  incompetent  grumblers,  who  have  been  obligingly 
provided  by  a  State  system  of  education. 

But  if  any  further  illustration  be  needed  of  the 
superficiality  and  harmfulness  of  the  education  forced 
upon  the  masses,  we  have  it  glaringly  enough  in  the 


40  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

cheap  literature  of  to-day.  This  stupendous  mass  of 
bosh  could  not  have  been  produced  unless  there  were 
a  demand  for  it.  Some  people  are  never  tired  of 
abusing  the  millionaires  who  have  made  their  fortunes 
by  providing  the  illiterate  nonsense  that  forms  the 
intellectual  food  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  public. 
It  is  wholly  unjustifiable  and  illogical  to  blame  them. 
They  are  not  founders  of  new  schools  of  thought  in 
the  field  of  literature ;  they  are  men  of  business,  and 
do  not  pretend  to  be  anything  worse.  As  such,  it  is 
their  vocation  to  find  out  what  the  public  want,  and 
to  supply  it  to  them.  They  have  no  interest  in 
making  the  million  take  their  literature  after  it  has 
been  passed  through  a  mincer.  They  chop  up  news 
and  hash  grammar  at  half  price  because  the  patrons 
of  cheap  papers  and  periodicals  like  their  literature 
served  up  in  that  fashion. 

It  is  not  the  millionaire  trader  who  is  to  blame  for 
this  state  of  affairs — he  merely  profits  by  its  exist- 
ence. The  real  culprit  is  the  education  system,  which 
is  the  universal  provider  of  the  peculiar  type  of 
culture  that  interests  itself  in  the  number  of  beef 
sandwiches  that  would  be  required  to  encircle  the 
earth,  or  the  rate  at  which  the  population  of  the 
world  would  have  to  increase  within  a  given  time  to 
enable  its  inhabitants,  by  mounting  upon  each  other's 
heads,  to  reach  the  moon. 

The  enormous  demand  for  this  class  of  literature  is 
the  most  pregnant  evidence  of  the  miserable  effects 
of  misapplied  education  and  defective  instruction 
that  could  well  be  brought  forward.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  uncultured  masses  who  have 


THE  GREATEST  MISERY  41 

been  driven  through  the  standards  of  an  elementary 
school.  Thousands  who  have  been  put  through  the 
paces  of  what  is  called  '  higher  education  *  may  be  seen 
in  railway-carriages,  at  health  resorts,  or  in  the  public 
libraries,  deeply  immersed  in  cheap-jack  reading- 
matter  that  no  self-respecting  person  of  moderate 
intelligence  would  care  even  to  be  capable  of  specify- 
ing. 

This  painful  sight,  which  cannot  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  the  least  observant,  must  surely  lead  the 
reflective  man  or  woman  to  doubt  the  value  of  educa- 
tional methods  that  have  led  to  no  better  result.  It 
is  monstrous  to  think  of  years  spent  in  grinding  out 
syntax  rules,  mathematics,  Latin,  French,  geography, 
science,  history,  composition,  and  a  dozen  other 
branches  of  knowledge,  in  order  to  develop  a  taste 
for  sensational  rags,  middle-class  magazines,  and 
inferior  fiction. 

If  the  process  were  coupled  with  no  worse  con- 
sequences than  this,  nobody  of  the  least  preten- 
sion to  culture  would  wish  to  see  it  continued 
another  day.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  mischief 
goes  far  beyond  mere  superficiality  and  bad  taste. 
It  carries  its  pernicious  influence  into  every  social 
problem  by  which  modern  statesmen  are  perplexed 
and  harassed.  From  the  housing  question  to  the 
dearth  of  servants  we  feel  its  baneful  effects.  And 
as  if  it  were  not  enough  to  have  unfitted  the 
masses  of  the  people  for  the  occupations  best  suited 
to  the  great  bulk  of  them,  to  have  instilled  into  the 
minds  of  working-men's  children,  by  means  of  illite- 
rate Shakespeare  recitations  and  burlesque  efibrts  to 


42  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

grasp  geography,  a  contempt  for  the  skilled  labour 
of  the  artisan — this  education  process  has  brought 
about  a  general  deterioration  in  the  manners  of  the 
lower  classes  that  has  long  been  a  subject  of  general 
complaint. 

Nobody  wishes  to  see  the  common  people  in  a 
constant  attitude  of  servility  towards  the  classes  above 
them.  To  thinking  people  nothing  is  more  painful 
than  to  observe  such  signs  of  a  want  of  proper  self- 
respect  and  independence  on  the  part  of  freeborn 
men  and  women  of  whatever  standing  in  the  social 
scale.  But  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  educating  the 
masses,  in  the  sense  in  which  that  term  seems  to  be 
generally  employed,  has  had  the  effect  of  eradicating 
from  them  all  respect  for  education.  The  educated 
man  of  real  attainments  is  not  looked  up  to  in  the 
smallest  degree  by  the  average  individual  of  the 
lower  orders.  It  would  be  useless  to  quote,  in  support 
of  a  statement  made  in  the  presence  of  unexceptional 
members  of  the  working  classes,  the  opinion  of  any 
recognised  authority.  For  the  matter  of  that,  there 
are  many  persons  of  a  higher  rank  who  are  supposed 
to  have  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  a  more  liberal  type  of 
education  than  that  afforded  by  the  elementary 
school,  who  are  equally  unimpressed  by  the  value  of 
expert  knowledge. 

Whether  it  is  that  State-educated  youths  think  that 
their  accomplishments  have  made  them  the  equals  of 
everybody  else,  or  whether  the  inanity  of  the  system 
to  which  they  have  been  subjected  has  given  them  a 
contempt  for  learning,  it  would  be  difficult  to  deter- 
mine.    Probably  both  misconceptions  are  evenly  dis- 


THE  GREATEST  MISERY  43 

tributed  amongst  the  victims  of  the  process.  But 
the  fact  that  this  should  be  the.  case  at  all  speaks 
eloquently  for  the  crass  ignorance  which  results  from 
the  confounding",  on  the  part  of  so-called  education- 
ists, of  mere  fact-cramming  and  subject-compulsion 
with  the  proper  development  of  the  human  faculties. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   OUTPUT    OF  PRIGS 

Having  considered  the  evils  produced  by  sham 
education,  such  as  is  compulsorily  given  to  the 
masses  of  the  people,  we  can  proceed  to  examine 
into  the  average  results  effected  by  more  genuine 
and  efficient  systems  of  cramming  and  instruction. 
It  is  not  in  the  least  degree  necessary,  for  this 
purpose,  to  go  into  minute  comparisons  of  the  vari- 
ous types  of  secondary  schools  and  colleges  that  have 
been  established  in  this  country.  In  the  actual 
method  of  teaching  there  is  little  to  choose  between 
them.  All  have  practically  a  common  aim,  namely, 
the  preparation  of  boys  and  young  men  for  examina- 
tions. 

Of  course,  all  boys  who  go  to  school  are  not 
destined  for  professions  that  necessitate  the  passing 
of  an  examination,  competitive  or  otherwise.  But 
that  does  not  disturb  the  school  authorities  a  jot,  or 
involve  the  slightest  relaxation  of  the  school  system. 
The  boys  are  crammed  just  the  same.  Whoever 
wishes  to  pass  through  the  mill  must  go  in  like  a  pig 
at  one  end  and  come  out  as  a  sausage  at  the  other. 
There  is  no  middle  course  except  the  private  tutor ; 
and  he,  owing  to  the  defects  of  his  own  early  training 


THE  OUTPUT  OF  PRIGS  45 

and  to  the  terrific  Conservatism  peculiar  to  his  pro- 
fession, probably  knows  no  better  process  than  the 
familiar  routine  of  cram  and  idea-suppression. 

The , whole  of  school  life  is  a  scramble  for  marks. 
The  school  managers  and  masters  are  interested  in 
getting  the  boys  stuffed  with  facts,  dates,  figures, 
and  inflections,  because  the  prestige  of  the  school — 
and  consequently  its  commercial  success — is  mainly 
dependent  upon  the  creditable  placing  of  pupils  in 
public  examinations.  Therefore  the  boys  are  en- 
couraged, or  rather  compelled,  to  occupy  themselves 
with  what  will  best  conduce  to  secure  this  object, 
regardless  of  their  own  wishes  or  obvious  inclinations. 

A  boy  might  enter  a  grammar-school,  or  one  of  the 
great  public  schools,  teeming  to  his  finger-tips  with 
an  inborn  thirst  for  scientific  knowledge ;  he  might 
spend  all  his  spare  moments  making  crude  experi- 
ments with  an  air-pump,  or  gazing  at  planets  through 
a  cheap  astronomical  telescope ;  he  might  fail  dis- 
mally to  grasp  the  rudiments  of  the  Latin  grammar, 
and  be  incapable  of  conjugating  an  irregular  verb ; 
but  his  nose  would  be  kept  down  to  the  grindstone 
of  the  school  curriculum  all  the  same,  and  not  the 
smallest  attention  paid  to  his  obvious  bent  of  mind. 

He  had  been  placed  there,  the  authorities  would 
say,  to  receive  a  general  education,  and  a  general 
education  he  should  have.  If  during  the  process 
all  the  scientific  enthusiasm  is  ground  out  of  him, 
that  is  not  the  business  of  the  schoolmaster.  The 
boy,  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  instruction,  is  an 
empty  bottle  into  which  a  certain  prescription  is  to 
be  poured.     The  prescription   has   been   made   up 


V 


46  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

beforehand,  and  cannot  be  altered.  The  school 
undertakes  to  administer  a  draught,  but  it  refuses  to 
bother  about  diagnosing  each  case.  There  is  only 
one  method  of  treatment,  and  every  patient  who 
enters  the  establishment  has  to  be  submitted  to  it. 

There  have  been,  of  course,  enlightened  pedagogues. 
The  names  of  Arnold  and  Thring  will  always  stand 
out  prominently  in  the  history  of  English  school  life, 
and  it  will  be  a  bad  day  indeed  for  the  youth  in  our 
public  schools  when  their  traditional  influence  shall 
have  been  entirely  obliterated.  They  grafted  upon 
the  established  methods  of  teaching  a  liberal  and 
broad-minded  effort  to  bring  out  what  was  best  in 
each  pupil  by  other  influences.  ^  It  is  no  wisdom,' 
Dr.  Arnold  declared,  '  to  make  boys  prodigies  of 
information  ;  but  it  is  our  wisdom  and  our  duty  to 
cultivate  their  faculties  each  in  its  season,  first  the 
memory  and  imagination,  and  then  the  judgment ;  to 
furnish  them  with  the  means,  and  to  excite  the  desire 
of  improving  themselves,  and  to  wait  with  confidence 
God's  blessing  on  the  result.' 

Edward  Thring  wrote  the  following  remarks  in  his 
diary : 

<'  *  Education  is  not  bookworm  work,  but  the  giving 
the  subtle  power  of  observation,  the  faculty  of  seeing, 
the  eye  and  mind  to  catch  hidden  truths  and  new 
creative  genius.  If  the  cursed  rule-mongering  and 
technical  terms  could  be  banished  to  limbo,  something 
might  be  done.  Three  parts  of  teaching  and  learning 
in  England  is  the  hiding  common  sense  and  disguising 
ignorance  under  phrases.' 

No  stranger  anomaly  can  be  conceived  than  that 


THE  OUTPUT  OF  PRIGS  47 

presented  by  the  constant  effort  of  these  two  eminent 
headmasters  to  undo  the  evils  of  a  universal  system  of 
education.  It  is  not  often  that  people  strive  to  set 
their  house  in  order  after  this  fashion,  and  all  honour 
is  due  to  them  for  the  courageous  endeavour.  The 
mistake  they  made  was  in  tinkering  with  a  system 
inherently  bad  and  useless,  instead  of  taking  the  bold 
step  of  abolishing  it  altogether  and  beginning  afresh 
on  new  and  sound  principles. 

The  energies  of  schoolmasters  of  the  type  of  Thring 
and  Arnold  are,  in  fact,  concentrated  mainly  upon  a 
constant  struggle  to  prevent  the  ordinary  process  of 
school  instruction  from  producing  prigs.  Stupid  boys 
are  generally  rendered  more  stupid  by  teaching,  for 
reasons'  that  will  be  analyzed  later  on.  But  boys 
whose  brains  are  amenable  to  academic  training 
are  liable,  unless  the  environment  of  the  school  is 
peculiarly  unfavourable  to  the  development  of  the 
species,  to  become  priggish. 

It  is  the  purely  academic  training  that  produces  the 
prig.  Football,  cricket,  and  other  athletic  sports  are 
not  favourable  to  his  growth ;  and  he  receives  equally 
little  encouragement  from  his  companions.  The 
important  point  about  him  is  that  he  is  not  a  natural 
product  at  all,  but  the  outcome  of  an  artificial  drilling 
of  the  mind.  In  a  word,  he  is  the  embodiment  of 
the  education  system,  uncorrected  by  fortuitous 
influences  and  conditions.  Everybody  knows  that^ 
gracefulness  is  not  acquired  by  means  of  stilted 
lessons  in  deportment,  but  that  it  consists  of  natural 
muscular  movement  untrammelled  by  self-conscious- 
ness or  artifice.     The  same  law  of  nature  applies  to 


1 


48  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

the  working  of  the  brain.  Stuffing  a  boy's  head  with 
so  much  knowledge  is  not  developing  his  mind,  and 
the  result  must  necessarily  be  as  artificial  as  the 
process.  The  mind  becomes  incapable  of  thinking 
individually  and  naturally  ;  it  becomes  pedantic  and 
circumscribed,  powerless  to  give  simple  expression  to 

/      simple  thoughts  ;  and  the  prig  is  made. 

\  It  requires  a  great  deal  of  kicking  and  hustling 
on  the  part  of  the  victim's  schoolfellows  to  arrest 
this  process,  and  the  cure  is  generally  only  effected 
outwardly.  Priggishness  cannot  be  eradicated  from 
the  system  in  a  moment,  even  by  the  most  heroic 
measures.  Its  excision  involves  a  slow  mental  pro- 
cess, the  converse  of  that  which  served  to  call  it  into 
existence.  The  prig  has  to  divest  himself  of  the 
false  mental  outlook  imposed  upon  him  by  his  educa- 
tion, and  to  begin  all  over  again.  It  is  a  hard  lesson 
which  can  only  be  learnt  in  the  school  of  life, 
generally  after  humiliating  experience  and  bitter 
suffering.  Many  never  succeed  in  learning  it.  There 
must  be  some  material  to  work  upon,  and  probably 
their  individuality,  weak  at  the  commencement  and 
therefore  doubly  in  need  of  tender  treatment  and 
fostering  care,  has  been  hopelessly  crushed  out  of 
existence  by  the  conventional  training  of  school  and 
university. 

Under  present  conditions  prigs  can  and  do  grow 
up  everywhere.  In  some  educational  institutions — 
notably  in  great  public  schools  like  Eton  and  Harrow 
— they  are  more  discouraged  than  in  others ;  but  the 
cramming  system  has  reached  such  proportions  that 
all  schools  and  colleges  are  affected  in  a  greater  or 


THE  OUTPUT  OF  PRIGS  49 

less  degree.  They  infect  our  public  life,  as  we  have 
seen ;  largely  recruit  our  public  service ;  and  are  in 
evidence  in  the  pulpit,  at  the  schoolmaster's  desk, 
on  public  platforms,  in  the  lecture-room  of  the 
university,  and  wherever  the  services  of  educated 
men  are  employed. 

The  ideals  of  men  like  Arnold  and  Thring  cannot 
be  carried  out  as  long  as  the  examination  system 
puts  a  premium  upon  cramming.  *  I  call  that  the 
best  theme,'  said  Dr.  Arnold,  alluding  to  original 
composition,  'which  shows  that  the  boy  has  read  and 
thought  for  himself ;  that  the  next  best,  which  shows 
that  he  has  read  several  books,  and  digested  what  he 
has  read  ;  and  that  the  worst,  which  shows  that  he 
has  followed  but  one  book,  and  followed  that  without 
reflection.' 

There  is  no  time  nowadays  for  a  boy  to  read  and^ 
think  for  himself     Besides  the  examinations  inside  ^ 
his   own  school  for  which  he   has  to  be  prepared^    j 
there  are  scholarships,  university  examinations,  com-  A 
petitive  examinations  for  the  civil  service,  and  a  host 
of  other  possibilities  of  the  kind,  all  of  which  neces-  \ 
sitate   the   acquisition   of   an   enormous   number   of  / 
useless  facts  in  every  branch  of  learning.  ^     ^ — ' 

Too   much   attention  is  concentrated  on  the  ad- 
mirable physical  product  of  the  athletic  side  of  our 
public  school  and  university  life.     This  advantage  of  ^ 
the  English  system  of  education  has  been  dwelt  upon 
to  such  an  extent,  that  people  are  apt  to  overlook  "  / 
the  fact  that,  side  by  side  with  these  fine  specimens    / 
of  healthy  and  for  the  most  part  unintellectual  man-    j 
hood,  we  are  manufacturing  a  purely  academic  article    I 

4        \ 


so  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

of  the  least  inspired  and  most  retrogressive  descrip- 
tion. 

If  somebody,  wishing  to  make  you  acquainted 
with  a  friend,  says  to  you  :  *  I  want  you  to  meet 
So-and-so ;  he  was  at  Eton  and  Trinity  Hall,  and 
came  out  tenth  in  the  mathematical  tripos,'  you  know 
exactly  the  kind  of  man  to  whom  you  are  going  to 
be  introduced.  He  will  have  a  very  proper  contempt 
for  made-up  ties,  and  will  refuse  to  fasten  the  bottom 
button  of  his  waistcoat.  You  know  beforehand  the 
precise  point  of  view  that  he  will  take  upon  every 
conceivable  topic,  and  the  channels  in  which  his  con- 
versation is  certain  to  flow. 

His  entire  mental  horizon  will  be  bounded  by 
academic  conventionalities  in  such  a  cast-iron  fashion 
that  it  would,  you  are  well  aware,  waste  your  time  to 
attempt  to  extend  its  boundaries  by  the  fraction  of 
an  inch.  If  you  say  anything  yourself  out  of  the 
beaten  track,  you  know  that  you  will  be  looked  down 
upon  as  a  fool  or  a  faddist.  The  Eton  stamp  will  be 
upon  his  dress  and  manners ;  the  Cambridge  brand 
seared  into  every  crevice  of  his  mind.  There  will  be 
an  individuality  about  him,  but  it  will  be  an  indi- 
viduality shared  in  common  with  hundreds  of  young 
men  of  the  same  educational  antecedents. 

That  is  the  fault  of  the  system.  It  takes  away,  or 
fails  to  evoke,  the  distinguishing  traits  of  each  indi- 
vidual, and  substitutes  a  kind  of  manufactured  per- 
sonality according  to  the  particular  institution,  or 
type  of  institution,  in  which  the  educational  meta- 
morphosis has  taken  place.  'A  mob  of  boys,'  said 
the   man   who    raised     Uppingham   from    complete 


THE  OUTPUT  OF  PRIGS  51 

obscurity  to  the  front  rank  of  public  schools,  *  cannot 
be  educated.'  It  is,  nevertheless,  the  process  that  is 
going  on  all  over  the  civilized  world.  Reform  does 
not  lie  alone  in  making  instruction  itself  more  effective. 
As  long  as  the  principle  is  retained  of  forcing  certain 
facts  and  certain  subjects  into  the  mind  of  every  boy, 
the  country  will  continue  to  breed  conventionality,  to 
produce  a  uniform  type  of  useless  mediocrity,  and 
to  make  prigs. 

This  is,  unfortunately,  exactly  what  the  average 
educationist  aims  at.  There  is  no  disguise  about 
the  belief  that  conventional  ideas,  and  the  manufac- 
ture of  what  is  called  average  ability,  are  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  the  State.  And  this  type  of  fossilized 
Conservatism  seems  to  grow  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  schools  and  colleges  in  the  country. 

Lower-middle-class  young  men,  of  no  intellectual 
predisposition  at  all,  are  being  turned  out  on  all  sides 
crammed  with  the  narrowest  type  of  educational 
tradition.  Prigs  are  produced  wholesale  ;  the  worst 
and  most  odious  branch  of  the  family  being  the 
semi-illiterate  prig — the  man  who  gets  drummed  out 
of  decent  regimental  messes,  the  man  who  wants  to 
go  on  the  stage  and  declaim  Shakespeare  through 
his  nose,  the  man  who  vulgarizes  the  public  service 
by  dropping  his  h's  in  the  great  Government  depart- 
ments, and  others  too  numerous  to  be  specified. 

Everything  is  vulgar  that  pretends  to  be  what  it  is 
not.  Priggishness  is  an  artificial  mental  condition 
that  is  far  more  common  than  people  generally  sus- 
pect. We  are  most  of  us  prigs,  if  we  only  knew  it. 
The  man  who  is  unable  to  get  rid  of  conventions  and 

4—2 


52  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

to  think  for  himself  is  a  prig.  England  is  peopled 
with  them.  We  meet  them  at  every  turn ;  we  see 
them  driving  the  country  to  the  dogs  by  sheer 
inability  to  grasp  its  needs  ; — and  we  send  our  sons  to 
the  schools  and  universities  to  be  manufactured  after 
the  same  pattern.  j 


CHAPTER  VII 

BOY    DEGENERATION 

If  some  boys  thrive,  according  to  ordinary  school 
standards,  on  the  cramming  system,  what  becomes  of 
those  to  whose  nature  the  process  is  entirely  antago- 
nistic? 

The  question  is  best  answered  by  a  glance  at  the 
schools  themselves.  Take  one  of  the  great  public 
schools,  and  it  will  be  found  that  much  the  same 
conditions  are  prevalent  in  every  class  or  form. 
There  is  a  small  percentage  of  boys  at  the  top  of 
each  class  who  are  considered  the  most  intelligent, 
and  by  whom  most  of  the  questions  asked  by  the 
master  are  answered.  The  remaining  majority  are 
divided  into  two  sections,  one  of  which  consists  of 
what  are  termed  boys  of  average  ability,  whilst  the 
other  contains  the  lazy  element,  the  refractory  boys, 
and  the  dullards. 

In  the  last  chapter  we  chiefly  discussed  those 
individuals  who  may  be  taken  as  representing  the 
average  of  the  best  results  achieved  by  higher 
schools  and  universities.  These  form,  however,  only 
a  fraction  of  the  scholars  who  pass  through  such 
institutions.  It  still  remains  for  us  to  discover  the 
role  which  is  played  by  the  other  four-fifths  in  school- 


54  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

life.  According  to  scholastic  methods  of  classifica- 
tion, the  bulk  of  this  residue  are  boys  of  medium 
intelligence  who  plod  on  without  specially  distinguish- 
ing themselves,  and  contrive,  by  dint  of  industry  and 
application,  to  blunder  through  the  ordinary  course 
of  study  without  coming  to  grief. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conjure  up  a  more  melan- 
choly picture  than  that  presented  by  these  plodders, 
whose  work  is  rendered  trebly  hard  by  being  per- 
formed against  the  grain.  They  suffer  more  under 
the  system  than  the  dull,  the  lazy,  and  the  fractious, 
who  escape  its  worst  evils,  either  because  some  active 
power  of  resistance  comes  to  their  rescue,  or  because 
the  mind  itself  is  so  formed  as  to  be  incapable  of 
receiving  instruction  imparted  on  the  cramming  prin- 
ciple. 

But  the  average  mediocrity  amongst  schoolboys 
are  often  inferior  in  ability  both  to  those  who  rank 
above  and  below  them  in  school  attainment.  They 
neither  profit  by  the  teaching  process,  nor  do  they 
possess  those  qualities  that  would  enable  them  to 
resist  its  consequences.  Thus  they  fall  between  two 
stools,  being  carried  out  of  their  natural  sphere,  and 
at  the  same  time  failing  to  attain  such  a  measure  of 
artificial  success  as  would  afford  them  compensation 
for  the  injury. 

Success  in  life  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  generalize 
about.  It  is,  however,  important  to  note  as  far  as 
possible  the  results  brought  about  by  school  educa- 
tion. The  boy  who  is  trained  to  pass  examinations 
has  a  respectable  chance  of  getting  into  some  branch 
of  the  public  service ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  from 


BOY  DEGENERATION  55 

amongst  his  ranks  that  the  pernmanent  officials  of  the 
various  departments  of  Government  are  recruited. 
A  great  number  of  those  who  distinguish  themselves 
academically  also  pass  into  the  teaching  profession ; 
though  a  considerable  percentage  of  graduates,  for 
reasons  that  will  be  discussed  in  due  course,  drift  into 
the  ranks  of  the  unemployed. 

The  average  schoolboy,  who  does  his  work  mechani- 
cally and  without  enthusiasm,  probably  furnishes  the 
greatest  number  of  examples  of  the  misplaced  indi- 
vidual. His  application  to  his  studies  is  not  natural ; 
it  is  enforced  by  what  is  called  school  discipline.  That 
is  to  say,  the  authorities  devise  every  conceivable 
form  of  punishment  to  make  a  constant  grind  at 
obligatory  subjects  less  disagreeable  than  the  con- 
sequences of  idleness.  These  are  the  simple  arts  by 
means  of  which  unwilling  boys  are  driven,  like  cattle, 
along  the  highway  of  what  is  termed,  by  an  inaccurate 
application  of  the  English  language,  knowledge. 

Anybody  who  has  been  coerced,  and  pcenaQd,  and 
flogged  through  the  curriculum  of  a  public  school  will 
acknowledge  that  the  performance  is  not  an  ex- 
hilarating one  for  the  victim.  It  is  preposterous  to 
dignify  this  nigger-driving  by  the  term  '  education.' 
One  might  as  well  talk  of  the  Chinese  eagerly  em- 
bracing Christianity,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
missionaries  have  been  forced  upon  them,  like  their 
foreign  trade,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 

The  wonder  is  that  anybody  survives  the  process 
and  retains  his  sanity.  That  many  nervous  tempera- 
ments and  highly-gifted  minds  do  not  survive  it  is  a 
point  of  so  much  importance  that  it  will  be  dealt  with 


S6  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

later  on  in  a  separate  chapter.  What  needs  em- 
phasizing here  is  that  to  make  boys  do  certain  things 
under  compulsion  is  not  developing  their  faculties, 
but  is  absolutely  preventing  their  development ;  and 
secondly,  that  this  infamous  but  universal  proceeding 
is  responsible  for  a  positive  degeneration  amongst 
those  whom  it  is  supposed  to  educate  and  improve. 

Dr.  Arnold  held  that  a  low  standard  of  schoolboy 
morality  was  inevitable.  *  With  regard  to  reforms  at 
Rugby/  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  '  give  me  credit,  I  must 
beg  of  you,  for  a  most  sincere  desire  to  make  it  a 
place  of  Christian  education.  At  the  same  time,  my 
object  will  be,  if  possible,  to  form  Christian  men,  for 
Christian  boys  I  can  scarcely  hope  to  make ;  I  mean 
that,  from  the  natural  imperfect  state  of  boyhood,  they 
are  not  susceptible  of  Christian  principles  in  their 
full  development  upon  their  practice,  and  I  suspect 
that  a  low  standard  of  morals  in  many  respects  must 
be  tolerated  amongst  them,  as  it  was  on  a  larger 
scale  in  what  I  consider  the  boyhood  of  the  human 
race.' 

In  a  letter  to  another  friend  he  spoke  still  more 
strongly  on  the  subject.  *  Since  I  began  this  letter,' 
he  wrote,  ^  I  have  had  some  of  the  troubles  of  school- 
keeping;  and  one  of  those  specimens  of  the  evil  of 
boy  nature  which  makes  me  alwaj^s  unwilling  to 
undergo  the  responsibility  of  advising  any  man  to 
send  his  son  to  a  public  school.  There  has  been  a 
system  of  persecution  carried  on  by  the  bad  against 
the  good,  and  then,  when  complaint  was  made  to  me, 
there  came  fresh  persecution  on  that  very  account, 
and  divers  instances  of  boys  joining  in  it  out  of  pure 


BOY  DEGENERATION  57 

cowardice,  both  physical  and  moral,  when,  if  left  to 
themselves,  they  would  rather  have  shunned  it.  And 
the  exceedingly  small  number  of  boys  who  can  be 
relied  on  for  active  and  steady  good  on  these  occa- 
sions, and  the  way  in  which  the  decent  and  respect- 
able of  ordinary  life  (Carlyle's  **  Shams  ")  are  sure  on 
these  occasions  to  swim  with  the  stream  and  take 
part  with  the  evil^  makes  me  strongly  feel  exemplified 
what  the  Scriptures  say  about  the  strait  gate  and 
the  wide  one — a  view  of  human  nature  which,  when 
looking  on  human  life  in  its  full  dress  of  decencies 
and  civilizations,  we  are  apt,  I  imagine,  to  find  it 
hard  to  realize.  But  here,  in  the  nakedness  of  boy 
nature,  one  is  quite  able  to  understand  how  there 
could  not  be  found  so  many  as  even  ten  righteous  in 
a  whole  city.' 

This  sweeping  statement  has  been  quoted  because 
it  comes  with  double  force  from  an  undisputed 
authority  such  as  the  late  Dr.  Arnold.  Everybody 
who  has  had  experience  of  school-life  knows  that  the 
average  boy  spends  a  great  deal  of  his  time  in  cheat- 
ing the  masters,  lying  to  the  authorities,  and  playing 
every  sort  and  kind  of  mischievous  or  disreputable 
prank  that  comes  into  his  head.  But  it  is  better  to 
have  this  fact  testified  to  by  a  man  who  has  been  in 
a  position  to  observe  large  numbers  of  boys  over  a 
very  extended  period.  The  accusation  of  exaggera- 
tion or  hasty  generalization  cannot  then  be  well 
sustained. 

Where,  however,  I  venture  to  differ  with  Dr.  Arnold 
is  in  the  assumption  that  this  low  standard  of  morality 
must  be  ascribed  to  boy  nature  alone.     Undoubtedly 


58  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

this  is  the  case  in  part.  But  there  is  a  far  more 
potent  cause  than  natural  instinct.  It  is  to  be  found 
in  the  system  of  education  which  not  only  fails  to 
develop  and  encourage  the  boy's  individual  tastes  or 
faculties,  but  actually  forces  upon  him  occupations 
that  are,  for  the  most  part,  absolutely  foreign  to  his 
nature.  This  is  the  real  key  to  the  vagaries  of  boy- 
hood, and  without  such  an  explanation  one  must  hold, 
with  the  great  headmaster  of  Rugby,  that  boy  nature 
is  inherently  bad. 

Boys,  like  other  rational  beings,  must  have  their 
interests  and  amusements.  If  the  legitimate  and 
normal  ones  are  prohibited,  solace  will  be  sought  in 
those  which  are  illegitimate  and  abnormal.  By  failing 
to  encourage  the  faculties  that  nature  intended  a  par- 
ticular boy  to  develop,  a  vacuum  is  created.  This 
vacuum  must  be  filled  up,  and  it  is  no  earthly  use 
trying  to  fill  it  up,  against  the  grain,  with  mathe- 
matical problems  or  the  irregular  inflections  of  Latin 
verbs.  The  average  boy  is  as  little  capable  of  taking 
an  absorbing  interest  in  these  exhilarating  features 
of  the  school  curriculum  as  would  be  the  average 
Hottentot. 

Every  healthy  boy  stores  up  energy.  It  should  be 
the  first  object  of  the  schoolmaster — if  such  a  being 
ought  to  have  any  existence  at  all — to  see  that  this 
energy  is  not  allowed  to  waste.  Natural  forces  of 
this  kind  do  not,  it  must  be  recollected,  evaporate. 
There  they  are,  and  the  laws  of  nature  have  decreed 
that  they  shall  be  constantly  expended  and  renewed. 
If  this  or  that  boy's  store  of  energy  is  not  turned 
into  one  channel,  it  will  expend  itself  through  another. 


BOY  DEGENERATION  59 

If  the  schoolmaster  were  to  take  the  trouble  to  find 
out  the  particular  bent  of  a  pupil,  and  were  then  to 
proceed  to  foster  and  educate  it,  all  the  energy  of  the 
boy  would  be  used  in  this  useful  and  congenial  work. 
But  this  can  never  be  the  case  until  the  present 
methods  of  instruction  have  been  revolutionized. 

The  discipline  upon  which  schools  pride  themselves 
so  much  is  an  altogether  false  and  pernicious  discip- 
line. The  only  liberty  which  is  vouchsafed  to  school- 
boys is  outside  of  their  work.  No  doubt  it  is  an 
excellent  thing  that  boys  should  be  free  to  choose 
the  manner  in  which  they  make  use  of  their  leisure 
hours.  There  would  be  a  great  uproar  amongst 
parents  if  their  sons  were  forbidden  to  join  in  the 
games  they  wished  to  play,  and  compelled  to  play 
those  for  which  they  had  no  taste.  It  would  be  con- 
sidered monstrous  to  remove  a  boy  who  was  a  capital 
bowler  from  the  cricket-field,  and  make  him  go  in  for^ 
fives  or  racquets ;  or,  to  use  an  Eton  illustration,  to 
take  a  '  wet  bob '  who  was  a  promising  oarsman  and 
might  row  in  the  school  eight  at  Henley,  and  turn 
him  into  the  playing-fields  to  become  an  inferior 
*  dry  bob.' 

But  the  same  arguments  that  apply  to  physical 
discipline  apply  also  to  mental  discipline.  In  the 
class-room  there  is  practically  no  latitude  given  to 
the  boy  at  all.  In  many  schools,  it  is  true,  there  is 
the  choice  of  a  classical  or  a  modern  side ;  but  the 
choice  is  the  parents',  not  the  boy's.  The  latter  is 
always  treated,  in  reference  to  his  school-work,  as  a 
machine.  There  is  simply  the  offer  of  a  classical 
strait-waistcoat  or  a  modern  strait- waistcoat ;  and  the 


6o  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

boy  is  put  into  one  or  the  other  according  to  the 
fancy  of  a  third  person. 

Strait- waistcoats  have  long  been  discarded  in  lunatic 
asylums.  It  has  been  discovered  by  medical  experts 
that  anything  like  coercion  is  the  worst  possible  treat- 
ment for  the  brain.  Whilst  our  lunatics,  however, 
are  treated  in  this  humane  and  rational  spirit,  the 
educational  expert  is  busily  occupied  in  destroying 
the  delicate  fabric  of  the  schoolboy  brain  by  the  very 
methods  that  have  been  discontinued  in  the  case  of 
madmen. 

The  school  curriculum,  or  any  other  arbitrary 
course  of  study,  is  a  mental  strait-waistcoat.  It  has 
a  more  immoral  and  degenerating  effect  upon  the 
mind  because  it  is  applied  directly.  If  physical 
restraint  acts  perniciously  upon  the  reasoning  powers, 
a  far  greater  degree  of  harm  must  be  caused  by  direct 
mental  restraint.  Yet  nobody,  from  Arnold  and 
Thring  down  to  the  professional  crammer  of  to-day, 
seems  to  have  grasped  this  simple  fact. 

Schoolmasters  are  like  mothers.  They  imagine 
that  because  a  boy  happens  to  have  survived  their 
system  of  teaching  the  latter  must  necessarily  be  the 
one  perfect  method — just  as  the  fond  mother,  whose 
infant  has  been  enabled  by  means  of  a  phenomenal 
digestion  to  outlive  a  particular  food,  believes  that  it 
is  the  only  food  upon  which  babies  can  possibly  be 
brought  up. 

When  we  come  to  survey  impartially  the  effects  of 
this  system  of  education  upon  boys  in  general,  it 
must  surely  be  brought  home  to  us  that  something  is 
radically   wrong   somewhere.     If  a  few  manage   to 


BOY  DEGENERATION  6i 

survive  the  treatment  and  remain  the  ten  righteous 
individuals,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  degeneration  of 
the  majority  ?  It  is  surely  absurd,  with  the  anomalies 
and  defects  of  the  whole  method  of  educating  youth 
staring  one  in  the  face,  to  ascribe  it  to  mere  boy 
nature. 

The  truth  is  that  in  boyhood  the  natural  tendencies 
incline  to  push  their  way  boisterously  to  the  front. 
They  are  constantly  trying  to  find  an  egress.  But 
the  parent  and  the  pedagogue,  in  their  blindness,  can 
only  see  in  this  law  of  nature  a  wicked  and  perverse 
propensity  that  must  be  restrained  at  all  hazards  by  a 
speedy  application  of  the  educational  strait-waistcoat. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EDUCATED 

So  far  we  have  chiefly  discussed  the  effect  produced 
upon  the  individual  by  a  compulsory  course  of  study. 
It  has  been  seen  that  he  suffers  in  a  number  of  ways, 
through  being  subjected,  from  his  earliest  childhood, 
to  a  more  or  less  inflexible  method  of  training.  All 
of  these,  however,  have  been  directly  attributable  to 
his  education.  We  may  now  consider,  before  pursu- 
ing the  subject  any  further,  certain  disabilities  that 
may  be  traced  to  the  same  cause,  but  which  are  brought 
about  indirectly. 

It  is  bad  enough,  as  most  of  us  will  have  per- 
ceived, to  compel  a  boy  to  learn  certain  things 
whether  they  are  congenial  to  him  or  not.  But  it  is 
preposterous  that  the  same  stock  of  knowledge  should 
be  forced  upon  all  alike.  This  is,  however,  exactly 
what  is  being  done  in  every  educational  establish- 
ment throughout  the  Empire,  with  the  most  dis- 
astrous consequences  to  the  victims  of  the  system. 

Let  us  turn  once  more  to  the  map  of  life  for  an 
illustration. 

The  average  educated  man  begins  to  learn  his 
alphabet  at  the  age  of  four  or  five.  During  the 
following  years  he  receives  the  necessary  grounding 


THE  STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EDUCATED  63 

to  prepare  him  for  the  lower  forms  of  a  public  school. 
At  eleven,  or  thereabouts,  he  commences  his  school 
career.  Throughout  the  whole  of  this  period  he  is 
put  through  a  course  of  study  identical  in  every  respect 
with  that  pursued  by  his  schoolfellows.  Every  boy 
in  the  school  is  crammed  with  the  same  facts,  and 
in  the  same  way.  The  sixth-form  boy  is  exactly  like 
the  rest  of  his  class,  exactly  like  the  sixth-form 
boy  of  ten  years  ago,  and  probably  exactly  like  the 
sixth-form  boy  of  ten  years  hence.  Not  only  does  he 
possess  precisely  the  same  knowledge  as  his  com- 
panions, hold  the  same  opinions,  and  enjoy  the  same 
mental  horizon,  but  he  has  acquired  uniform  tastes  _ 
and  habits.  In  other  words,  the  school  has  stamped 
upon  him  a  common  individuality  shared  by  all  its 
pupils. 

After  he  has  left  school  the  same  process  is  carried 
on  at  the  university.  Here  he  is  crammed  again 
with  the  same  facts,  the  same  rules,  and  the  same 
ideas,  borrowed  from  the  same  people,  that  are  being 
dinned  into  scores  of  other  young  men  who  are 
working  for  their  degree.  Having  gone  conscien- 
tiously through  this  routine,  he  takes  his  degree  with 
the  rest. 

This  aim  being  accomplished,  his  educational 
career  is  over.  He  has  graduated  ;  that  is  to  say,  he 
has  obtained  a  certificate  to  the  effect  that  he  has 
acquired  a  certain  regulation  stock  of  knowledge. 

What  happens  next  ? 

The  unhappy  graduate  suddenly  makes  the  dis- 
covery that  his  university  qualification  is  not  the 
ready  passport  to  employment   that  he  had    fondly 


64  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

imagined  it  to  be.  Unless  he  has  a  reasonable  chance 
of  a  curacy  and  chooses  to  enter  the  Church,  or  can 
scrape  together  a  few  pupils  to  coach,  or  has  the 
means  to  go  on  reading  for  the  Bar  or  cramming  for 
the  public  examinations,  his  prospects  of  immediate 
starvation  are  excessively  favourable. 

It  was  remarked  some  years  ago  by  a  writer  who 
had  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in  investigating  life 
at  common  lodging-houses  in  the  poorer  districts  of 
the  Metropolis,  that  a  startling  number  of  university 
men  seemed  to  drift  into  them.  Yet  these  are  the 
men  who  are  supposed  to  have  qualified  themselves 
most  highly  for  the  holding  of  good  positions.  In 
some  way,  therefore,  it  is  clear  that  this  academic 
training  has  disadvantages  which  serve  to  handicap 
its  victims  severely  in  practical  life.  It  cannot  be 
mere  accident  that  those  who,  according  to  all  edu- 
cational tradition,  are  classed  as  the  most  fit  for 
responsible  employment  necessitating  good  mental 
ability,  actually  labour  under  obvious  disabilities  in 
this  connection. 

Nobody  can  urge  that  there  is  not  enough  work  of 
a  nature  demanding  high  attainments  to  go  round. 
Literature  itself  offers  an  enormous  field  for  the 
exhibition  of  special  talent ;  and  there  are  many 
other  walks  in  life  where  mental  superiority  is  sadly 
needed,  and  which  should  therefore  provide  ample 
work  and  remuneration  for  those  who  show  capability 
and  resource.  But  in  spite  of  all  these  openings 
some  of  our  scholars  are  driven  to  eke  out  a  miserable 
pauper's  existence  in  the  common  lodging-house,  or 
even  in  extreme  cases  to  solicit  parish  relief. 


THE  STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EDUCATED  65 

The  explanation  of  this  strange  anomaly  lies 
simply  in  the  fact  that  the  educational  mill  not  only 
manufactures  dummies,  but  makes  them  all  exactly 
alike.  In  the  higher  types  of  schools  and  colleges 
there  is  generally  a  choice  of  three  patterns — the  i 
classical  dummy,  the  modern  language  dummy,  and/ 
the  scientific  dummy.  But  each  pattern  is  very  like 
the  other,  for  all  the  practical  purposes  of  this  life ; 
that  is  to  say,  they  are  all  equally  useless  and 
equally  •  unfitted  for  the  task  of  moving  forward  with 
the  times. 

The  result  of  fitting  out  everybody  with  a  common 
stock  of  knowledge  is  to  institute  a  disastrous  form 
of  intellectual  competition.  Thousands  of  young 
men  are  being  equipped  annually  by  our  schools  and 
universities  for  the  performance  of  precisely  the  same 
functions.  Intelligence  brought  wholesale  to  the 
market  in  this  stereotyped  form  is  in  much  the  same 
unhappy  condition  as  unskilled  labour.  There  is  a 
supply  far  in  excess  of  the  demand,  and  consequently 
employment  cannot  be  found  for  all. 

Perhaps  the  profession  of  literature  and  journalism 
affords  the  aptest  illustration  of  the  utter  folly  and 
uselessness  of  producing  these  machine-made  scholars, 
all  filled  chock-full  with  the  same  ideas,  facts,  figures, 
and  dates.  Here,  as  in  reality  everywhere  else,  there 
is  need  of  originality,  intellectual  independence, 
insight,  judgment,  and  imagination.  Journalism 
wants  ideas;  facts  are  amply  provided  by  the  news 
agency  and  the  reporter.  The  gates  of  literature 
are  opened  wide  for  striking  and  vigorous  thought, 
trenchant  critipism,  and  imaginative  flights  of  fancy. 


K 


66  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

What  has  the  average  academically-trained  man  to 
offer  ?  He  has  an  assortment  of  second-hand  ideas 
borrowed  from  Plato  and  Socrates,  from  Ovid  and 
Virgil  and  Horace;  he  can  echo  Voltaire,  Goethe, 
Kant,  Shakespeare,  Dante  ;  he  can  dish  up  Aristotle, 
Pythagoras,  Bacon,  Galileo,  Newton,  Lavoisier,  Davy, 
Faraday  and  Darwin.  He  can  borrow  illustrations 
from  classical  mythology  ;  he  knows  the  Dynasties  of 
ancient  Egypt ;  and  he  is  able  to  furnish,  without 
reference  to  history,  the  exact  date  upon  which  King 
John  signed  Magna  Charta,  and  the  precise  number 
of  battles  fought  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 

Such  are  the  literary  accomplishments  of  number- 
less university  graduates,  and  it  is  small  wonder  that 
they  often  lead  to  the  workhouse.  The  demand  for 
the  dressed-up  ideas  of  the  poets,  philosophers,  and 
scientists  of  a  former  generation  is  not  great.  Those 
who  like  their  literature  at  second  hand  prefer  snippets 
from  the  Newgate  Calendar  to  the  wise  saws  of 
Bacon ;  and  they  would  rather  have  their  blood 
stirred  by  quotations  from  *  The  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,'  or  *  Pay,  pay,  pay,'  than  read  a  paraphrase 
of  the  combined  wisdom  of  all  the  philosophers  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

The  same  argument  holds  good  in  relation  to 
other  professions  and  occupations.  The  university 
graduate  has  no  practical  accomplishments.  He 
may  be  an  ornamental,  but  he  is  certainly  not  ipso 
facto  a  useful,  member  of  society.  The  only  thing 
for  which  he  is  pre-eminently  fitted  is  to  assist  others, 
by  means  of  extension  lectures  and  cramming,  to  be 
his  companions  in  misfortune.     But  this  can  hardly 


THE  STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EDUCATED  6y 

be  designated  a  beneficial  sphere  of  activity,  and  he 
is  handicapped  in  all  he  undertakes  by  the  fact  that 
thousands  of  others  possess  the  same  educational 
equipment  as  himself. 

Why  should  every  educated  man  be  like  the  other  ? 
There  is  absolutely  no  reason  for  it.  The  similarity 
is  purely  artificial.  Nature  never  intended  all  men 
to  be  cast  in  the  same  mould,  and  it  is  only  the 
perversity  of  man  himself  that  has  brought  the 
human  race  down  to  such  a  level.  The  stupidity 
of  giving  every  scholar  the  same  mental  outfit  is  so 
self-evident  as  scarcely  to  need  further  comment. 
Even  following  the  modern  plan  of  stuffing  minds 
instead  of  developing  them,  one  would  have  thought 
that  common  sense  would  dictate  the  necessity  of 
manufacturing  as  much  variety  as  possible. 

The  whole  trend  of  evolution  is  to  differentiate; 
and  if  natural  laws  were  not  completely  disregarded 
by  education  systems,  the  absurdity  of  filling  the 
world  with  two  or  three  human  species  instead  of  a 
hundred  thousand  would  never  have  been  perpetrated. 
As  long  as  this  arbitrary  interference  with  Nature  is 
continued,  educated  men  will  not  cease  to  be  a  drug 
in  the  market.  Its  immediate  effect  is  not  to  endow 
the  individual  with  special  qualities,  but  to  handicap 
him  heavily  for  the  real  business  of  life. 

Competition  amongst  the  *  well-educated  '  is  not 
the  result  of  over-population  or  of  a  too  liberal 
supply  of  competent  men.  It  is  caused  by  uniformity 
of  attainment ;  and  until  this  is  generally  realized, 
one  of  the  most  pressing  social  problems  cannot  hope 
to  find  a  solution. 

5—2 


CHAPTER  IX 

WOMAN'S   EMPIRE   OVER   MAN 

Men  have  always  been  reluctant  to  acknowledge  the 
truth  about  woman's  real  position  in  the  world. 
They  keep  up  a  beautiful  kind  of  masculine  myth 
about  the  mastery  of  the  sterner  sex  and  their 
mental  superiority,  and  they  talk  of  woman  in  a 
patronizing  way  as  man's  helpmate. 

There  is  no  doubt — it  is  a  physiological  fact — 
that  man  possesses  more  brain-power  or  capacity 
than  woman.  But  woman  has,  on  the  other  hand, 
an  enormous  advantage  in  the  use  to  which  she  has 
put  her  mental  machinery  from  time  immemorial. 
The  truth  is  that  women  think  out  things  for  them- 
selves a  great  deal  more  than  does  the  average  man. 
As,  however,  they  concentrate  their  attention  for 
the  most  part  on  what  are  called  the  minor  interests 
of  life,  whilst  men  arfe  occupied  with  bigger  and  more 
important  things,  it  has  come  to  be  accepted  that  the 
mind  of  woman  is  inferior  to  the  mind  of  man. 

In  one  sense  this  is  true.  Potentially,  woman's 
mind  has  not  the  capacity  of  man^s.  One  has  only 
to  look  for  female  Shakespeares,  Newtons,  Bismarcks, 
Raphaels,  and  Beethovens,  to  verify  the  fact  beyond 
dispute.      But   we   are   dealing   here   with    existing 


WOMAN'S  EMPIRE  OVER  MAN         69 

circumstances,  not  with  potentialities.  Therefore  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  as  a  general  rule, 
women  use  what  brain  power  they  have  to  much 
better  advantage  than  men  ;  which  amounts  to  a 
confession  that  woman,  apart  from  intellectual 
specialization,  is,  on  the  average,  man's  mental 
superior. 

This  is  a  sweeping  statement  to  make,  but  it  is 
made  only  in  the  interests  of  truth,  and  it  admits  of 
a  great  deal  of  plausible  explanation. 

Man's  mental  training,  as  has  been  fully  pointed 
out,  consists  almost  entirely  in  pouring  facts  into  a 
vacuum  created  by  the  careful  elimination  of  original 
thought.  Until  recently,  women  have  not  been  sub- 
jected to  this  agreeable  process.  For  a  very  long 
time  they  were  not  educated  at  all,  and  when 
governesses  first  came  into  fashion  in  better  class 
families,  the  idea  was  rather  to  endow  girls  with  a 
few  graceful  accomplishments  than  to  cram  them 
with  dates  and  other  kinds  of  mechanical  know- 
ledge. 

This  tradition  is  still  kept  up  to  a  certain  degree 
in  the  higher  social  circles ;  but  there  have  also  sprung 
up  a  large  number  of  girls'  colleges,  in  which  all  the 
bad  points  of  masculine  education  are  carefully  copied. 
These  colleges  are  frequented  by  girls  of  the  upper 
and  middle  classes,  chiefly  the  latter,  and  no  doubt 
they  are  gradually  working  a  revolution  in  feminine 
character.  But  heredity — especially  when  it  is,  within 
a  generation  or  so,  the  heredity  of  long  ages — is  a 
very  potent  factor  in  the  formation  of  both  mind  and 
body,  and  offers  a  steady  resistance  to  innovation. 


70  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

The  full  effects,  therefore,  of  this  educational  revolu- 
tion in  respect  to  womankind  are  not  yet  apparent. 

The  net  result  of  this  is  that  the  majority  of  women 
are  still  addicted  to  thought.  Facts  have  not  yet 
entirely  taken  the  place  of  ideas  in  their  minds, 
except  in  extreme  cases  which  may  be  called  excep- 
tional, although  it  must  be  confessed  that  they  are 
becoming  every  day  less  rare.  They  think,  no  doubt, 
for  the  most  part  about  the  commonplace  incidents 
of  their  daily  life,  and  possibly  they  are  given  too 
much  to  morbid  introspection.  But  anything  that 
serves  to  make  a  human  being  exercise  the  function 
for  which  his  brain  was  originally  intended  should 
be  regarded  with  thankfulness.  It  is  a  thousand 
times  better  for  the  development  of  the  mind  to 
speculate  about  the  motives  of  acquaintances,  or  to 
philosophize  on  the  shortcomings  of  the  maid-of-all- 
work,  than  to  babble  off  the  dates  of  the  Sovereigns 
from  William  the  Conqueror,  or  to  construe  Horace's 
Odes  without  taking  in  a  syllable  of  their  sense. 

Women  have  thus  formed  a  habit  of  reflection 
about  trifles,  which  the  more  gifted  amongst  them 
extend  to  weightier  topics.  And  it  is  in  this  way 
that  they  are  able  to  gain  an  ascendancy  over  man 
that  is  the  more  potent  because  it  is  unobtrusive. 
The  average  woman  sees  things  the  subtleties  of 
which  escape  man  altogether,  and  she  perceives  them 
because  her  mind  has  been  trained,  by  natural  de- 
velopment, to  observation. 

The  average  man,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  most 
unobservant  creature  under  the  sun.  He  rarely 
understands  even  what  is  going  on  under  his  nose. 


WOMAN'S  EMPIRE  OVER  MAN         71 

It  IS  all  very  well  to  say  that  his  superior  mind  is 
wrapt  up  in  percentages,  or  absorbed  in  grand  schemes 
for  the  regeneration  of  mankind.  The  plain  truth  is 
that  he  does  not  possess  the  faculty  of  applying  his 
intelligence  to  everything  within  his  range  of  observa- 
tion. Evolution  intended  him  to  possess  it ;  but 
education  systems,  which  harbour  very  little  respect 
for  the  laws  of  Nature,  have  found  ready  means  to 
curb  the  propensity  or  to  destroy  it  altogether. 

It  is  small  matter  for  surprise,  therefore,  that 
woman  should  have  succeeded  in  subjecting  man  to 
an  empire  as  autocratic  as  it  is,  to  all  outward  appear- 
ances, unsuspected.  Some  people  maintain  that  this 
empire  is  gained  solely  by  physical  attraction  ;  but 
this  contention  is  disproved  easily  enough.  All 
women  do  not  possess  the  charm  of  beauty ;  yet 
there  is  scarcely  a  woman  of  any  nationality,  or 
belonging  to  any  station  in  life,  who  does  not  exercise 
a  more  or  less  powerful  influence  over  her  menkind. 

Husbands  are  guided  by  their  wives,  even  in 
matters  of  business  or  affecting  public  interests,  far 
more  than  they  are  generally  ready  to  acknowledge. 
Staying  at  a  seaside  hotel  some  time  ago,  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  hard-headed  Lancashire  merchant 
who  had  amassed  a  comfortable  independence.  In 
an  outburst  of  confidence  he  told  me  one  day  that 
he  had  never  taken  a  single  important  step  in  the 
conduct  of  his  business  without  consulting  his  wife, 
and  he  also  acknowledged  that  he  had  never  had  to 
regret  asking  her  advice. 

The  moral  of  this  story  is  the  more  significant 
when  it  is  recollected  that  in  such  a  case  the  wife  has 


72  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

not  had  the  same  opportunities  as  her  husband  of 
forming  a  correct  judgment.  The  latter  has  the 
business  details  at  his  finger-ends ;  he  is  acquainted 
with  the  person  or  persons  with  whom  the  dealings 
are  taking  place  ;  and  he  has  his  experience  to  fall 
back  upon.  But  somehow  or  other  the  wife  seems 
to  grasp  all  the  points,  and  to  see  more  clearly  into 
the  motives  of  the  person  concerned.  *  Why/  she 
will  exclaim  to  her  husband,  *  can't  you  see  that  So- 
and-so  is  trying  to  bamboozle  you  ?'  And,  the  scales 
falling  from  the  deluded  husband's  eyes,  he  suddenly 
makes  the  discovery  that  his  wife  thinks  where  his 
own  powers  of  reflection  are  contented  to  remain 
dormant. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  habit  of  thinking  cannot  be 
acquired  through  exercise  in  mental  gymnastics. 
Philosophers,  mathematicians,  and  men  of  science 
are  notoriously  up  in  the  clouds,  and  incapable  often 
to  a  remarkable  degree  of  managing  the  affairs  of 
everyday  life  with  common  sense.  Yet  these  are  the 
individuals  who  have  been  subjected  to  the  highest 
form  of  what  is  called  mental  training.  If  fact-cram- 
ming and  mental  gymnastics  are  the  best  developers 
of  the  human  mind,  these  men  ought  to  be  perfect 
models  of  intelligence.  But  will  any  candid-minded 
person  call  it  the  highest  form  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment to  have  a  clear  conception  of  the  precession 
of  the  equinoxes,  or  to  manufacture  metaphysical 
conundrums,  whilst  remaining  utterly  incapable  of 
applying  common  sense  to  human  affairs  that 
demand  at  least  an  equal  amount  of  attention  ? 

It  is  clear  that  this  type  of  mental  training  does 


WOMAN'S  EMPIRE  OVER  MAN         73 

not  teach  people  to  think  at  all,  but  has  the  contrary 
effect  of  restricting  the  intelligence  to  an  altitude  very 
far  beyond  the  ordinary  requirements  of  our  social 
existence.  Man  may  have  a  very  broad  horizon ;  but 
the  broader  it  becomes,  the  further  he  seems  to  be 
transported  from  the  capacity  to  exercise  the  normal 
functions  of  the  brain.  To  designate  this  the  proper 
development  of  the  mind  would  be  manifestly  absurd  ; 
yet  many  people  seem  contented  to  regard  it  as  such, 
and  accept  the  anomaly  without  giving  its  obvious 
contradictoriness  a  second  thought. 

Of  course  it  is  not  argued  that  woman's  mental 
training  is,  or  has  been,  all  that  can  be  desired.  It 
is,  in  her  case,  more  the  neglect  to  apply  severe 
educational  methods,  than  anything  else,  that  has 
permitted  the  negative  development  of  her  thinking 
faculties  ;  and  this  tends  to  demonstrate  all  the  more 
conclusively  that  the  real  use  of  the  brain  is  practi- 
cally destroyed  by  conventional  modes  of  instruction. 

Women,  left  to  their  own  devices  for  countless 
generations,  have  acquired  a  faculty  that  all  the 
education  systems  in  the  world  have  failed  to  pound 
into  the  mind  of  man.  It  is  their  superiority  in  this 
respect  that  has  given  them  far-reaching  empire  over 
the  opposite  sex.  That  this  should  be  generally 
appreciated  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  because  the 
modern  metamorphosis  of  woman,  if  rightly  under- 
stood, is  the  best  conceivable  object-lesson  in  the  evils 
brought  about  by  the  educational  methods  of  the 
present  day.  It  is  not  that  the  academically-trained 
woman  threatens  to  push  man  out  of  his  place  in  the 
world,  but  that  she  is  herself  in  danger  of  losing  the 


74  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

very  weapon  that  has  given  her  so  large  a  share  of 
power  and  influence. 

A  great  deal  of  nonsense  has  been  talked  and 
written  about  the  spectacled  Girton  girl  competing 
with  men  in  knowledge,  at  the  expense  of  forfeiting 
their  admiration  and  thereby  losing  her  vantage- 
ground.  Spectacles  do  not  enter  into  the  matter  at 
all.  As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  physical 
attraction  has  nothing,  or  very  little,  to  do  with 
feminine  wire-pulling. 

Women  derive  their  real  powers  from  a  gift  of 
trained  observation,  and  from  the  subtlety  conferred 
upon  them  by  the  capacity  to  apply  their  intelligence 
to  the  numerous  small  matters  which  go  to  make  up 
the  sum  of  human  life.  Their  minds  will  no  longer 
develop  these  powers  when  they  are  systematically 
subjected  to  a  process  of  education  which  has  invari- 
ably failed  to  evoke  them  in  the  opposite  sex.  And 
with  the  loss  of  them,  woman  is  bound  also  to  lose 
the  empire  which  she  has  hitherto  exercised  over 
masculine  nature. 

From  this  point  of  view  alone,  the  education  of 
women  on  the  modern  system  is  much  to  be  deplored. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  women  in  general  have  always 
exercised  their  predominant  influence  for  the  good  of 
mankind.  Striking  exceptions  might  easily  be  adduced 
from  history ;  but,  on  the  whole,  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  woman  has  seldom  abused  her  power. 
Therefore,  anything  that  is  calculated  to  undermine 
or  destroy  this  favourable  influence  on  human  affairs 
cannot  be  regarded  as  otherwise  than  pernicious. 

The   more   the   idea   spreads   that  girls   must   be 


WOMAN'S  EMPIRE  OVER  MAN         75 

given  the  same  educational  equipment  as  boys,  the 
more  rapid  will  be  the  degeneration  of  woman.  It  is 
a  well-known  fact  in  the  medical  profession  that 
weakly  boys  are  often  unable  to  withstand  the  strain 
of  school  cramming ;  therefore  girls,  with  their  more 
delicate  organization,  will  suffer  proportionately  in  a 
greater  degree.  Physical  training,  of  course,  obviates 
a  great  deal  of  this  evil.  But  the  same  thing  is  bound 
to  happen  in  the  case  of  girls  as  has  already  been 
experienced  where  boys  are  concerned  ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  most  promising  intellects  will  be  sacrificed, 
partly  through  the  ambition  of  the  school  authorities, 
whose  principal  anxiety  is  to  see  their  pupils  dis- 
tinguish themselves  in  examinations,  and  partly 
owing  to  the  fact  that  exceptional  ability  so  often 
implies  a  nervous  temperament  and  delicate  physique. 

Women,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  by  no  means  use 
their  faculties  of  thinking  and  observation  to  the  best 
advantage.  The  conclusions  at  which  they  arrive 
are  often  far  too  definite,  and  have  been  formed  in  too 
great  haste.  So  rapid  is  this  operation  of  thought  that 
it  often  becomes  a  mere  intuition.  Yet  the  remark- 
able accuracy  of  a  woman's  intuitions  is  evidence  that 
there  underlies  them  some  intellectual  process  resting 
on  a  more  solid  basis  than  conjecture  or  guesswork. 

It  is  the  crude  and  untutored  stage  of  development 
of  the  thinking  faculty  in  woman  that  causes  it  to 
work  intuitively,  instead  of  by  the  slower  and  sounder 
processes  of  logic.  To  neglect  a  faculty  is  by  no 
means  synonymous  with  developing  it.  Hence 
woman's  powers  of  thought  and  observation  are 
embryonic   rather   than    matured.     The   work   they 


76  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

perform  is  not  a  tithe  of  what  would  be  accomplished 
by  them  under  the  auspices  of  judicious  encourage- 
ment an  '  skilled  training.  The  faculty  has  neither 
been  destroyed  by  over-cramming  nor  fostered  by 
enlightened  treatment.  It  has  simply  been  allowed 
to  lie  more  or  less  dormant,  according  to  the  natural 
environment  of  the  individual. 

If  man,  with  his  superior  brain  capacity,  were 
encouraged  to  cultivate  the  habits  of  observation 
at  present  restricted  to  woman,  and  to  apply  his 
intelligence  to  everything,  instead  of  to  a  few  selected 
objects,  the  ratio  of  the  world's  progress  would  be 
enormously  increased.  Who  first  started  the  notion 
that  man  is  being  manufactured  into  a  superior  article, 
and  that  woman  cannot  do  better  than  submit  herself 
with  all  haste  to  the  same  process,  I  do  not  know. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  a  disastrous  doctrine,  and  the  sooner 
the  fallacy  of  it  is  perceived  the  more  chance  there 
will  be  of  saving  future  generations  of  women  from 
the  blunder  that  is  handicapping  the  masculine  sex 
at  the  present  moment. 

It  would  be  a  grand  thing  if  educationists  could  be 
persuaded  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  women, 
having  been  providentially  saved  from  school  instruc- 
tion for  past  generations,  have  been  enabled  to  pre- 
serve mental  faculties  that  no  amount  of  cramming 
and  corporal  punishment  has  ever  succeeded  in 
awakening  in  man.  They  would  then  cease  from 
their  ignorant  attempt  to  deprive  woman  of  her 
intellectual  gift,  and  possibly  even  do  something 
towards  securing  man  a  little  mental  room  for  the 
installation  of  his  own  thinking  faculty. 


CHAPTER  X 

YOUTH   AND   CRIME 

We  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  an  aspect  of 
the  educational  problem  that  involves  questions  of 
great  difficulty  and  importance.  The  discussion  has 
hitherto  been  limited  to  the  lesser  evils  attributable 
to  the  forcing  upon  the  masses  of  the  people  a  useless 
and  unsuitable  kind  of  education.  But  there  are  far 
graver  possibilities  than  the  mere  unfitting  of  large 
numbers  of  individuals  for  the  occupations  their 
natural  propensities  intended  them  to  pursue. 

People  are,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  driven  by  the 
stupidity  of  the  teaching  system  into  all  kinds  of 
uncongenial  employment.  The  suffering  and  waste 
caused  by  this  constant  production  of  the  unfit  are 
incalculable.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  that 
some  persons  have  formed  the  ingenious  theory  that 
this  world  is  hell  itself,  and  that  we  are  now  actually 
undergoing  our  punishment  in  purgatory.  Certainly 
there  is  some  ground  for  the  supposition  in  the  fact 
that  the  lives  of  so  many  of  us  seem  to  have  been 
ordered  in  direct  opposition  to  our  individual  tastes 
and  wishes. 

This  is  bad  enough.  The  question  we  have  to  face 
now   is   whether   we  have  not   to  thank  education 


7^  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

systems  for  something  a  great  deal  worse.  Mere 
unhappiness  is  not  necessarily  soul-destroying.  But 
there  is  only  too  good  reason  to  suppose  that  the  evil 
effects  of  the  mock  education  provided  by  the  State 
do  not  stop  at  making  its  victims  unhappy,  but  even 
go  so  far  as  to  plunge  a  certain  proportion  of  them 
into  actual  crime. 

At  the  outset  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the 
allegation  is  very  difficult  to  prove.  No  satisfactory 
evidence  on  the  point  is  derivable  from  published 
statistics.  It  is  quite  possible  to  determine  by  means 
of  the  latter  how  many  young  persons  between  the 
ages  of  twelve  and  twenty-one  have  been  convicted 
of  indictable  offences  during  the  year.  But  every- 
body who  is  acquainted  with  criminology,  or  who  is 
conversant  with  the  compilation  of  statistical  informa- 
tion, must  be  well  aware  of  the  futility  of  depending 
upon  the  apparently  clear  testimony  of  official  figures. 

It  would  be  extremely  useful  to  find  out  whether, 
juvenile  offenders  have  increased  or  decreased  since 
the  institution  of  compulsory  education.     Statistics 
relating   to   this   subject   are   procurable,   but   it   is 
impossible  to  place  any  reliance  upon  them. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  nothing  to  show  the 
cause  of  any  such  increase  or  decrease  in  the  offences 
committed  by  young  persons.  It  may  be  due  to  a 
variety  of  circumstances,  none  of  which  can  be 
accurately  determined.  For  instance,  it  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  youthful  offenders  have  of  late  years 
been  treated  by  magistrates  with  ever-increasing 
leniency.  Consequently,  fewer  convictions  take  place 
now,  in  regard  to  this  class  of  offence,  than  was  the 


YOUTH  AND  CRIME  79 

case  some  years  ago.  The  number  of  the  convictions 
is,  therefore,  no  guide  at  all  as  to  the  increasing  or 
diminishing  proportion  of  youthful  criminals. 

Then  there  is  the  increased  vigilance  of  the  police, 
which  leads  to  the  more  frequent  detection  of  crime ; 
whilst,  as  a  set-off  against  this,  there  is  the  fact  that 
education  teaches  the  criminal,  by  assisting  him  to 
the  reading  of  police-court  reports  and  sensational 
storyettes,  to  be  more  wary. 

Besides  these,  there  is  the  important  consideration 
that  by  far  the  larger  number  of  young  persons  guilty 
of  offences  of  various  kinds  are  not  prosecuted  at  all. 
This  is  due  to  two  causes  :  firstly,  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  majority  of  cases  they  are  not  found  out ;  and 
secondly,  that  many  people  are  reluctant  to  bring 
youthful  offenders  within  the  meshes  of  the  criminal 
law,  as  a  conviction,  whether  or  not  it  be  followed  by 
punishment,  generally  spells  ruin  to  the  person  who 
has  been  found  guilty. 

There  may  be,  and  there  probably  are,  many  other 
and  even  more  substantial  reasons  for  discrediting 
statistics  that  are  commonplaces  to  experts  in  crime. 
But  those  that  have  been  cited,  and  which  are  at  once 
suggested  by  common  sense,  fully  suffice  to  show  the 
impossibility  of  arriving  at  satisfactory  conclusions  on 
the  basis  of  statistical  tables  published  by  the  authori- 
ties. 

The  Blue-book  containing  the  latest  judicial  returns 
attempts  to  deal  with  this  question  of  the  increase  or 
decrease  of  juvenile  crime;  figures  being  only  avail- 
able, however,  from  the  year  1893.  '  To  answer  this 
question,'  it  is  stated,  '  it  is  necessary  to  ascertain  the 


8o 


THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 


proportion  which  youthful  offenders  bear  to  the  total 
number  of  convicted  persons.  This  is  given  in  the 
following  table,  where  it  will  be  seen  that  the  propor- 
tion of  offenders  under  the  age  of  twenty-one  remains 
almost  constant : 

'  PROPORTION  OF  YOUTHFUL  OFFENDERS  CONVICTED 
OF  INDICTABLE  OFFENCES  TO  TOTAL  NUMBER  OF 
PERSONS  CONVICTED. 


Age. 

1893. 

1894. 

1895. 

1896. 

1897. 

1898. 

Under  12  -     -     - 
12  and  under  16  - 
16  and  under  21  - 

Per  cent. 

4-6 

15-0 

21*2 

Per  cent. 

4*9 

lS-2 
22*0 

Per  cent. 

4-6 

13-4 

21-8 

Per  cent. 

5-6 
14*5 
197 

Per  cent. 

5-6 
i4'o 

19-5 

Per  cent. 

5-6 
14-5 

20*2 

Total  under  21    - 

40-8 

42-1 

39-8 

39'8 

39-1 

40*3 

*  The  general  result  is  that  the  number  of  youthful 
offenders  has  diminished  with  the  general  diminution 
of  crime,  but  that  they  still  bear  almost  the  same 
ratio  as  before  to  the  total  of  criminals.' 

All  this  is,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  absolutely  mis- 
leading. The  number  of  persons  convicted  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  increase  or  decrease 
of  crime ;  and  the  proportion  of  youthful  offenders  to 
the  total  number  of  persons  convicted  is  only  calcu- 
lated, in  view  of  the  great  amount  of  clemency  shown 
to  young  people  both  by  magistrates  and  by  the 
public,  to  give  one  a  wholly  false  impression  as  to 
the  prevalence  of  juvenile  crime. 

It  would  be  easy  to  take  the  criminal  statistics  of 
foreign  countries,  and  to  prove  from  them  that  the 
education  of  the  masses  there  has  brought  about  an 


YOUTH  AND  CRIME  8i 

overwhelming  increase  in  the  proportion  of  crimes 
and  offences  committed  by  young  persons  under  the 
age  of  twenty-one. 

In  Germany,  Austria,  France,  Russia,  Italy,  Holland, 
and  the  United  States  juvenile  crime  has,  according 
to  statistical  information,  largely  increased  during  the 
last  quarter  of  a  century.  But,  without  making  an 
exhaustive  inquiry  into  the  alterations  that  may  have 
taken  place  in  the  law,  the  relative  activity  of  the 
police,  and  a  dozen  other  contingencies,  it  would  not 
be  honest  to  attempt  to  draw  definite  conclusions 
from  these  figures. 

One  has,  after  all,  in  these  matters  to  fall  back 
upon  logic  and  common  sense.  There  is  the  solid  fact 
that  youthful  criminals  abound  in  spite  of  education 
systems,  and  although  there  is  a  considerable  leakage 
in  respect  to  school-attendance,  it  does  not  follow 
that  juvenile  offenders  are  drawn  from  this  truant 
class  to  a  disproportionate  extent.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, on  the  contrary,  that  a  great  amount  of 
non-attendance  at  school  is  due  to  the  employment 
of  children — especially  in  rural  districts,  where  the 
members  of  School  Boards  are  often  the  very  people 
who  extract  most  profit  from  child  labour. 

A  prison  chaplain  of  great  experience,  the  Rev. 
J.  W.  Horsley,  wrote,  in  his  interesting  work  on 
*  Prisons  and  Prisoners ' :  *  While  covetousness  is  a 
factor  of  crime,  the  tools  education  places  in  the 
hands  make  crimes  of  greed  more  possible,  and 
possible  at  an  earlier  age  than  in  past  generations. 
This  week  I  got  the  Church  of  England  Waifs  and 
Strays  Society  to  take  under  its  care  a  child  of  ten, 

6 


82  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

who  had  written,  filled  up,  and  cashed,  a  postal  order 
that  it  might  buy  more  lollipops.  Increased  know- 
ledge, especially  when  not  adequately  accompanied 
by  moral  and  religious  education,  will  create  new 
tastes,  desires,  and  ambitions,  that  make  for  evil  as 
well  as  for  good.  Let  instruction  abound,  let  educa- 
tion in  its  fullest  sense  more  abound,  but  let  us  be 
aware  of  the  increased  power  for  evil  as  well  as  for 
good  that  they  produce,  and  at  any  rate  let  us  not 
imagine  that  education  and  crime  cannot  co-exist. 
Crime  is  varied,  not  abolished,  not  even  most  effec- 
tually decreased,  by  the  sharpening  of  wits.' 

Speaking  of  intemperance  in  relation  to  crime,  he 
states  that  :  '  Brain-workers  provide  the  most  hope- 
less cases  of  dipsomania.  Increased  brain-power — 
more  brain-work  ;  more  brain-exhaustion — more  ner- 
vous desire  for  a  stimulant,  more  rapid  succumbing  to 
the  alcoholic  habit — these  are  the  stages  that  can  be 
noted  everywhere  among  those  who  have  had  more 
"  schooling  "  than  their  fathers.  Australia  consumes 
more  alcohol  per  head  than  any  nation.  In  Australia 
primary  education  is  more  universal  than  in  England, 
and  yet  there  criminals  have  increased  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  population.  Of  much  crime,  of  many 
forms  of  crime,  it  is  irrefragably  true  that  crime  is 
condensed  alcohol,  and  it  is  certainly  not  true  that 
the  absolutely  or  comparatively  illiterate  alone  com- 
prise those  who  swell  these  categories.' 

I  have  taken  pains  to  ascertain  the  opinions  of 
several  of  the  chaplains  attached  to  the  great  convict 
prisons,  and  they  are  practically  unanimous  in  con- 
demning the  present  system  of  education. 


YOUTH  AND  CRIME  83 

'  It  is  liable,'  writes  one  of  these  experienced  clergy- 
men, *to  foster  conceit,  discontent,  a  disinclination  to 
submit  to  discipline  and  authority,  and  a  dangerous 
phase  of  ambition,  which  are  fruitful  sources  of  that 
kind  of  crime  which  is  in  these  days  most  preva- 
lent. .  .  .  This  superficial  education  causes,  I  think, 
self-deceit  as  well  as  self-conceit,  and  makes  young 
people  imagine  that  because,  in  addition  to  what  they 
have  learnt,  they  can  present  a  good  outward  appear- 
ance, they  are  qualified  to  fill  any  kind  of  appoint- 
ment with  success. 

*I  think,  also/  he  goes  on  to  say,  'that  it  leads 
them  in  their  desire  to  rise  in  the  social  scale  to 
attempt  by  dishonest  means  to  live  at  a  higher  rate 
than  is  justifiable,  to  gamble  and  speculate,  in  order 
to  keep  up  a  false  position.  I  have  come  across  those 
who  have  fallen  where  this  has  confessedly  been  the 
case,  and  who  have  lamented  that  such  wrong  ideas 
had  been  put  into  their  heads.  Young  people  now 
look  upon  many  honourable  and  useful  employments 
as  beneath  them,  and  there  is  a  general  rush  for  those 
which  seem  to  offer  a  better  social  position,' 

The  conventional  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  cram- 
ming boys  with  moral  platitudes  and  all  kinds  of 
commonplace  facts  and  theoretical  knowledge  is  so 
ingrained  that  there  is  a  natural  reluctance  to  ascribe 
any  evil  effects  to  the  process  of  education.  I  am 
contented,  however,  to  let  the  facts  speak  for  them- 
selves. It  cannot  well  be  disputed  that  unsuitable 
education,  or  sham  education,  or  whatever  one  may 
like  to  call  it,  is  the  direct  cause  of  widespread  dis- 
satisfaction amongst  the  very  classes  from  which  the 

6—2 


84  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

majority  of  criminals  are  recruited.  Whilst  vast 
numbers  of  people  are  constantly  being  unfitted 
for  the  commonest  occupations  of  life,  there  must 
result  an  overcrowding  of  the  callings  which  are  con- 
sidered suitable  to  the  dignity  of  those  who  have 
eaten  the  unripe  fruit  of  the  elementary  tree  of  know- 
ledge. 

It  is  self-evident  that  the  unsuitably  educated  have 
much  greater  incentive  to  wrong-doing  than  the 
merely  illiterate,  and  it  is  also  a  corroborative  fact 
that  by  far  the  greater  proportion  of  criminals  have 
been  taught  at  least  to  read  and  write.  Given 
two  boys,  one  of  whom  had  acquired  a  smattering  of 
facts  at  school  and  had  learnt  the  Catechism  very 
perfectly  by  rote,  whilst  the  other  had  merely  been 
encouraged  to  apply  a  little  common  sense  to  manual 
labour,  who  would  have  any  hesitation  in  pointing 
out  the  former  as  the  more  likely  to  fall  into  evil 
ways? 

Therein  lies  the  supreme  foolishness  of  modern 
methods  of  instruction.  All  the  moral  aphorisms  in 
the  world  will  not  help  a  boy  to  be  honest  if  he  is 
at  the  same  time  unfitted  for  his  station  in  life. 
People  do  not  need  moral  instruction  ;  they  acquire 
all  their  morality  in  the  school  of  life.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  teach  boys  and  girls  theoretically  to  be 
virtuous.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  turn  them  into 
first-class  hypocrites,  ready  to  quote  texts  and  to 
subscribe  to  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  whilst  they  are 
busy  breaking  the  Ten  Commandments  every  day  of 
the  week. 

A  surprising  amount  of  virtue  would   come   into 


YOUTH  AND  CRIME  85 

the  world  of  its  own  accord  if  a  little  more  pains 
were  taken  to  preserve  for  each  individual  the 
environment  to  which  he  is  adapted  by  nature.  This 
life  has  become  such  a  mockery  that  people  talk  of 
heaven  as  a  state  in  which  every  person  will  be  free 
to  do  the  things  he  likes  best — as  if  that  blissful 
condition  were  utterly  unattainable  here. 

Whilst  such  anomalies  exist  as  those  which  curse 
the  existence  of  the  majority  upon  this  earth,  criminals 
will  continue  to  be  produced.  And  if  we  concede 
that  these  anomalies  are  directly  or  indirectly  brought 
about  by  false  and  irrational  methods  of  educating 
the  youth  of  the  country,  we  must  also  allow  that 
education  helps  to  manufacture  criminals  and  to 
encourage  crime. 


CHAPTER  XI 

MENTAL   BREAKDOWN 

It  was  frankly  stated  in  the  last  chapter  that  there 
IS  no  concrete  evidence  of  a  reliable  nature  as  to 
the  immoral  effects  of  our  education  system.  The 
inquirer  has  to  depend  rather  upon  the  logic  of 
philosophical  speculation  than  upon  the  testimony 
of  our  available  statistics,  common  sense  being 
generally  a  far  more  truthful  witness  than  figures 
that  can  be  manipulated  to  mean  almost  anything. 

But  when  we  come  to  inquire  into  the  physical 
evils  that  are  produced  by  cramming  and  injudiciously- 
applied  instruction,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the 
evidence  as  to  their  existence  rests  upon  a  much  more 
solid  foundation.  Clever  brain  specialists,  who  have 
made  a  lifelong  study  of  mental  diseases  and  the 
causes  of  mental  breakdown,  are  in  a  position  to 
state  very  definitely,  from  actual  experience,  whether 
or  not  the  cramming  system  of  modern  education  is 
productive  of  physical  ill  on  a  large  scale. 

We  all  of  us  know,  probably,  of  some  isolated 
instances  here  and  there  where  the  severe  strain  of 
cramming  for  a  competitive  examination  has  resulted 
in  loss  of  health  and  physical  breakdown.  Some  are 
even  aware  of  cases  in  which  the  unhappy  victim  of 


I 


MENTAL  BREAKDOWN  87 

overwork  has  lost  his  reason  altogether,  and  has  been 
compelled  to  be  placed  under  restraint.  But  it  is 
only  the  physician  who  has  made  a  special  study  of 
mental  diseases  that  is  in  a  position  to  form  wide 
and  accurate  generalizations  on  the  subject. 

In  approaching  this  question,  therefore,  I  have 
realized  the  importance  of  obtaining  the  opinions  of 
experts  who  are  alone  qualified  to  express  a  well- 
balanced  judgment  upon  a  matter  demanding  know- 
ledge and  opportunities  of  observation  of  a  very 
special  nature.  Accordingly,  I  have  consulted  some 
of  the  greatest  brain  specialists  in  this  country,  and 
the  brief  remarks  that  I  am  enabled  to  make  on  the 
subject  of  educational  cramming  and  mental  break- 
down are  chiefly  based  upon  the  valuable  hints  for 
which  I  am  indebted  to  them. 

To  take  the  case  of  healthy  children  first,  it  is 
satisfactory  to  learn  upon  high  authority  that  they 
do  not  suffer  much  physical  harm  from  the  effects 
of  overwork.  What  happens  in  their  case  is  that  the 
vigorous  and  healthy  brain  offers  a  sound  resistance 
to  the  stuffing  process,  and  speedily  forgets  what 
has  been  forced  into  it.  From  an  educational  point 
of  view  this  is,  of  course,  very  disastrous  ;  but  as  far 
as  health  considerations  are  concerned  it  affords  a 
certain  amount  of  consolation. 

This  is  to  say,  one  must  bear  in  mind,  that  modern 
methods  of  education  are  only  salutary  as  long  as 
they  fail  altogether  to  affect  the  intelligence.  The 
moment  they  prove  themselves  to  be  efficacious  they 
become  an  immediate  source  of  danger. 

It  follows  from  this  fact  that  stupid  children  are 


88  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

as  well  protected  against  the  evil  effects  of  the 
education  system  as  the  healthy  children.  In  fact, 
to  a  large  extent  the  stupid  children  are  the  healthy 
ones  by  reason  of  their  stupidity.  It  is,  however,  a 
great  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  stupid  child  neces- 
sarily implies  one  that  is  in  any  sense  deficient 
mentally.  The  dull  schoolboy  often  proves  in  after 
life  to  be  the  brilliant  man.  All  that  his  dulness 
need  be  taken  to  signify  is  that  his  mind  is  not 
receptive  to  the  subjects  which  are  being  forced  upon 
it.  Linnaeus  was  very  stupid  at  Latin  until  an 
enlightened  physician,  who  was  aware  of  his  passion 
for  botanical  study,  suggested  his  reading  Plinius ; 
and  although  he  may  not  have  imbibed  very  accurate 
information  about  natural  history  from  that  philoso- 
pher, he  succeeded  in  making  immediate  progress  in 
the  Latin  language. 

There  should  be,  under  a  rational  system  of  educa- 
tion, no  such  thing  as  a  stupid  child.  What  is,  after 
all,  stupidity  or  dulness  in  a  schoolboy  ?  It  simply 
means  that  the  boy's  faculties  are  undeveloped,  and 
that  no  amount  of  fact-cramming  has  succeeded 
in  developing  them.  The  whole  mischief  lies,  of 
course,  in  the  fact  that  the  school  is  not  trying  to 
develop  the  boy's  own  faculties  at  all,  but  merely  to 
force  him  to  adapt  himself  to  its  own  curriculum  and 
conventionality. 

The  danger  to  the  brain  of  the  healthy  or  stupid 
child  is  not  over-development  but  under-development. 
It  is  not  they  who  suffer  in  the  worst  sense  from  the 
evil  effects  of  over-education,  but  the  gifted  children, 
as  they  are  called,  or  those  whose  quick,  nervous 


MENTAL  BREAKDOWN  89 

intellects  are  most  susceptible  to  the  process  of 
receiving  any  kind  of  instruction. 

It  is  the  nervous  boy  or  girl  who  generally  makes 
the  most  promising  pupil.  A  natural  inclination  to 
study  leads  children  of  this  type  to  prefer  the  school- 
room to  the  playground.  The  boy  who  works  hard 
to  get  to  the  top  of  his  class,  or  to  pass  an  examina- 
tion, or  to  obtain  a  scholarship,  is  the  one  least 
given  to  games,  and,  in  consequence,  the  weakest 
physically. 

These  are  the  very  children  whom  the  teacher  is 
most  tempted  to  encourage  to  do  more  work  than  is 
good  for  them.  The  process  of  their  mental  develop- 
ment is  so  rapid  that  it  needs  no  stimulation  from 
outside.  But  that  is  not,  unfortunately,  the  concern 
of  the  school  authorities.  The  anxiety  to  produce 
scholars  who  will  distinguish  themselves  in  public 
examinations,  and  thereby  advertise  the  school, 
invariably  leads  the  schoolmaster  to  cram  and  stuff 
the  brains  of  the  brightest  and  most  forward  boys. 

There  is  special  danger  in  over-working  boys  or 
girls  of  this  type,  because  the  brain  is  not  strong 
enough  to  withstand  the  pressure.  The  result  is 
never  good,  and  in  extreme  cases  it  is  as  bad  as  it 
could  possibly  be.  It  follows,  in  fact,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  that  the  finest  and  most  sensitive  intellects 
are  the  first  to  succumb  to  the  pernicious  effects  of 
over-cramming  the  brain.  There  is  a  strain  that  can 
only  be  endured  by  second-rate  minds,  and  it  is  not, 
therefore,  the  intellectually  fittest  who  are  encouraged 
to  survive  under  the  present  system. 

What  has  been  stated  above  refers  rather  to  the 


go  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

higher  class  of  schools  and  colleges,  which  prepare 
boys  for  examinations  and  academic  distinctions  of 
various  kinds,  than  to  the  elementary  schools  to 
which  the  children  of  the  poor  are  commandeered. 
In  the  latter  establishments  a  special  barbarity  takes 
place  which  has  been  so  widely  discussed  in  Parlia- 
ment and  in  the  newspapers  that  I  will  do  no  more 
here  than  allude  to  it  in  passing. 

I  refer  to  the  forcing  of  instruction  upon  under-fed 
school-children. 

Apart  from  the  gross  inhumanity  of  the  proceeding, 
there  is  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  compulsory 
teaching  of  children  whose  bodies  have  not  been 
properly  nourished  tends  to  weaken  the  intellect. 
If  these  children  were  subjected  to  a  process  of 
cramming  such  as  is  usual  in  the  higher  schools, 
their  minds  would  undoubtedly  break  down  alto- 
gether. As  it  is,  the  comparatively  mild  method 
of  the  elementary  school  does  not  effect  anything 
worse  in  such  cases  than  the  prevention  of  the 
development  of  the  mind,  which  is  one  degree 
better  than  complete  breakdown  or  insanity. 

'  The  School  Board  system  of  cramming  with_ 
smatterings,'  wrote  one  of  the  greatest  mental 
specialists  in  the  world  in  reply  to  my  inquiries, 
*  instead  of  teaching  their  victims  to  think — even 
if  only  by  teaching  one  subject  well — is  perhaps 
responsible  for  some  positive  mental  breakdown  ;  but 
probably  the  main  harm  of  it  is  that  it  stifles  and 
strangles  proper  mental  development.'  *  Undeveloped 
mentality,'  he  says  in  conclusion,  '  is  perhaps  the 
principal  fault  of  our  educational  system  (so-called).' 


MENTAL  BREAKDOWN  91 

Another  distinguished  physician  writes  to  me  from 
a  lunatic  asylum : 

*  We  have  had  a  few  cases  who  have  broken  down, 
the  results  of  working  for  scholarships ;  also  we  have 
had  one  or  two  cases  of  ladies  who  have  broken  down 
working  for  higher  examinations.  Dr. and  my- 
self both  feel  certain  that  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be 
said  against  the  increased  pressure  put  upon  young 
adolescents  at  schools.  From  my  own  experience  I 
know  that  boys  who  were  considered  especially  clever, 
and  were  high  up  in  forms  in  the  public  school  I  was 
at,  have  most  of  them  now  dropped  back,  and  are 
very  mediocre.  On  the  other  hand,  many  who 
matured  slowly  have  continued  to  advance.  This 
is  only  an  observation,  and  has  many  exceptions  ; 
but  it  is  an  observation  that,  as  time  passes,  is  more 
fully  confirmed.' 

It  is  not  necessary  to  add  anything  to  these 
valuable  expressions  of  opinion,  proceeding  from 
eminent  men  of  wide  experience,  who  are  far  more 
capable  judges  than  the  layman  who  has  no  scientific 
knowledge  and  a  necessarily  limited  range  of  observa- 
tion. 

Facts  speak  very  eloquently  for  themselves.  If 
brain  specialists  are  continually  coming  across  cases 
of  mental  breakdown  resulting  from  cramming  or 
over-education,  it  is  quite  clear  that  a  system  which 
is  productive  of  such  evils  must  be  altogether  defec- 
tive in  principle  and  wanting  in  common  sense. 


CHAPTER  XII 

EVIDENCE   OF   HISTORY 

After  an  exhaustive  inquiry  into  the  multifarious 
evils  which  must  be  laid  at  the  door  of  education,  it 
is  refreshing  to  turn  to  history  for  illustrious  examples 
of  men  who  not  only  did  not  owe  their  greatness  to 
academic  training,  but  who  actually  owed  it  to  what 
would  nowadays  be  designated  a  neglected  educa- 
tion. 

The  chronicles  of  the  past  teem  with  instances  of 
youths  who  have  developed  into  brilliant  men,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  they  had  either  had  no  schooling 
at  all,  or  had  been  considered  the  dunces  of  their 
class.  It  would,  in  fact,  be  far  more  difficult  to  supply 
illustrations  of  great  men  who  have  succeeded  on 
account  of  their  academic  distinction,  than  to  give 
examples  of  those  who  failed  to  distinguish  them- 
selves at  school,  but  who  nevertheless  became  famous 
afterwards  as  men  of  unusual  talent. 

When  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  at  the  age  of- fifteen, 
left  the  military  college  of  Brienne,  where  he  had 
been  a  pupil  for  five  years  and  a  half,  the  inspector 
of  military  schools  gave  him  the  following  certificate  : 

'  M.  de  Buonaparte  (Napoleon),  born  August  15, 
1769;  height  4  feet   10  inches   10  lines;    is  in  the 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  93 

fourth  class ;  has  a  good  constitution,  excellent 
health,  character  obedient,  upright,  grateful,  con- 
duct very  regular ;  has  always  been  distinguished 
by  his  application  to  mathematics.  He  knows  history 
and  geography  very  passably.  He  is  not  well  up  in 
ornamental  studies  or  in  Latin,  in  which  he  is  only 
in  the  fourth  class.  He  will  be  an  excellent  sailor. 
He  deserves  to  be  passed  on  to  the  military  school  of 
Paris.' 

This  was  an  optimistic  description  of  the  youthful 
Napoleon's  accomplishments,  for  he  was,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  so  backward  in  Latin  that  his  removal  to 
Paris  was  opposed  by  the  sub-principal  of  the  college. 
According  to  the  testimony  of  his  schoolfellow  and 
biographer,  M.  de  Bourrienne,  he  exhibited  backward- 
ness in  every  branch  of  education  except  mathematics, 
for  which  he  showed  a  distinct  natural  bent. 

The  only  professor  at  Brienne  who  took  any  notice 
of  Napoleon  was  the  mathematical  master.  The 
others  thought  him  stupid  because  he  had  no  taste 
for  the  study  of  languages,  literature,  and  the  various 
subjects  that  formed  the  curriculum  of  the  establish- 
ment ;  and  as  there  seemed  no  chance  of  his  becoming 
a  scholar,  they  took  no  interest  in  him. 

*  His  superior  intelligence  was,  however,  sufficiently 
perceptible,'  writes  M^^e  Bourrienne,  'even  through 
the  reserve  under  which  it  was  veiled.  If  the  monks 
to  whom  the  superintendence  of  the  establishment 
was  confided  had  understood  the  organization  of  his 
mind,  if  they  had  engaged  more  able  mathematical 
professors,  or  if  we  had  had  any  incitement  to  the 
study  of  chemistry,  natural  philosophy,  astronomy, 


94  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

etc.,  I  am  convinced  that  Bonaparte  would  have  pur- 
sued these  sciences  with  all  the  genius  and  spirit  of 
investigation  which  he  displayed  in  a  career  more 
brilliant,  it  is  true,  but  less  useful  to  mankind.  Un- 
fortunately, the  monks  did  not  perceive  this,  and  were 
too  poor  to  pay  for  good  masters.  .  .  .  The  often- 
repeated  assertion  of  Bonaparte  having  received  a 
careful  education  at  Brienne  is  therefore  untrue.' 

Napoleon's  military  bent  showed  itself  whilst 
he  was  at  the  College  of  Brienne.  Heavy  snow 
fell  during  one  winter,  and  prevented  him  from 
taking  the  solitary  walks  that  were  his  chief  recrea- 
tion. He  therefore  fell  back  upon  the  expedient 
of  getting  his  school  companions  to  dig  trenches 
and  build  snow  fortifications.  *  This  being  done,' 
he  said,  ^  we  may  divide  ourselves  into  sections, 
form  a  siege,  and  I  will  undertake  to  direct  the 
attacks.'  In  this  way  he  organized  a  sham  war 
that  was  carried  on  with  great  success  for  a  fortnight. 

This  brief  sketch  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte's  school- 
days has  been  given  in  order  to  show  that  the 
development  of  his  genius  owed  nothing  to  academic 
training.  Without  being  actually  a  dunce,  he  was 
backward  in  all  the  subjects  except  the  one  in  which 
he  took  a  vivid  interest ;  and,  doubtless,  had  he  cared 
as  little  for  mathematics  as  for  Latin,  he  would  have 
left  Brienne  with  a  reputation  for  profound  stupidity. 

The  school  career  of  his  great  opponent,  Wellington, 
was  even  less  distinguished.  Tradition  has  handed 
down  to  posterity  no  further  details  regarding  his 
Eton  days  beyond  the  record  of  a  fight  with  Sydney 
Smith's  elder  brother  *  Bobus.'     Alluding  to  him  as 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  95 

a  dull  boy,  Mr.  Smiles  states,  in  a  footnote,  in  his 
book  on  *  Self-Help ' :  *  A  writer  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  (July,  1859)  observes  that  "the  Duke's 
talents  seem  never  to  have  developed  themselves 
until  some  active  and  practical  field  for  their  dis- 
play was  placed  immediately  before  him.  He  was 
long  described  by  his  Spartan  mother,  who  thought 
him  a  dunce,  as  only  *food  for  powder.'  He  gained 
no  sort  of  distinction,  either  at  Eton  or  at  the  French 
Military  College  of  Angiers."  It  is  not  improbable 
that  a  competitive  examination,  at  this  day,  might 
have  excluded  him  from  the  army.' 

Lord  Clive  was  a  perfectly  hopeless  youth  from 
the  schoolmaster's  point  of  view.  He  loathed  work^ 
and  was  always  up  to  some  prank  or  other.  In  the 
vain  hope  of  inducing  him  to  learn  something,  he 
was  sent  to  four  schools  in  succession  ;  but,  with  a 
single  exception,  every  master  under  whom  he  was 
placed  declared  him  to  be  an  incorrigible  idler.  The 
exception  was  Dr.  Eaton  of  Lostock,  who  predicted 
a  great  career  for  Clive,  provided  an  opportunity 
were  afforded  him  for  the  exercise  of  his  talents. 

At  Market  Drayton  he  amused  himself  by  organ- 
izing a  band  of  idle  scamps,  who  went  about  threaten- 
ing to  smash  the  windows  of  tradespeople  unless  they 
paid  a  fine  of  apples  or  pence ;  and  on  one  occasion 
he  alarmed  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  by  climbing 
a  church  steeple  and  seating  himself  upon  a  stone 
spout  near  the  top. 

A  man  of  the  same  stamp  who  received  the 
scantiest  education  was  George  Washington.  He 
is  described  as  having  been  given  a  common-school 


96  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

education,  with  a  little  mathematical  training,  but  no 
instruction  whatever  in  ancient  or  modern  languages. 

Christopher  Columbus,  another  adventurous  spirit, 
owed  very  little  to  his  schooling.  *  He  soon  evinced 
a  strong  passion  for  geographical  knowledge,'  writes 
Washington  Irving  in  his  interesting  Life  of  the 
explorer,  'and  an  irresistible  inclination  for  the 
sea.  .  .  .  His  father,  seeing  the  bent  of  his  mind, 
endeavoured  to  give  him  an  education  suitable  for 
maritime  life.  He  sent  him,  therefore,  to  the 
university  of  Pavia,  where  he  was  instructed  in 
geometry,  geography,  astronomy  and  navigation.  .  . . 
He  remained  but  a  short  time  at  Pavia,  barely 
sufficient  to  givt  him  the  rudiments  of  the  necessary 
sciences ;  the  thorough  acquaintance  with  them  which 
he  displayed  in  after-life  must  have  been  the  result  of 
diligent  self- schooling,  and  of  casual  hours  of  study 
amidst  the  cares  and  vicissitudes  of  a  rugged  and 
wandering  life.^ 

No  better  instance  of  the  advantage  of  natural 
development  and  self -culture  could  be  afforded 
than  by  the  career  of  Dr.  Livingstone.  Working 
in  a  cotton  factory  as  a  boy  of  ten,  he  studied 
scientific  works  and  books  of  travel,  besides  the 
classics,  not  only  at  night,  but  during  the  hours  of 
labour. 

'  Looking  back  now  at  that  life  of  toil,*  he  wrote 
afterwards,  *  I  cannot  but  feel  thankful  that  it  formed 
such  a  material  part  of  my  early  education  ;  and, 
were  it  possible,  I  should  like  to  begin  life  over  again 
in  the  same  lowly  style,  and  to  pass  through  the  same 
hardy  training.' 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  97 

Dr.  Adam  Clarke,  the  celebrated  divine,  scholar, 
and  philanthropist,  was  a  regular  dunce  in  his  early 
youth.  It  was  only  with  difficulty,  and  an  undue 
proportion  of  whacking,  that  the  elements  of  the 
alphabet  were  driven  into  his  head  by  an  impatient 
teacher — a  mode  of  instruction  that  probably  caused 
him  to  remark,  in  after  life,  that  '  many  children,  not 
naturally  dull,  have  become  so  under  the  influence 
of  the  schoolmaster.' 

It  is  related  of  Dr.  Clarke  that  when  he  reached 
the  middle  of  *  As  in  praesenti,'  in  Lilly's  Latin 
Grammar,  he  came  to  a  dead  stop  and  could  get  no 
further.  His  fellow-pupils,  however,  jeered  him  to 
such  an  extent  that  he  determined  to  go  on  and 
conquer  the  difficulty.  And  this  resolution  seems 
to  have  helped  him  considerably,  as,  instead  of  the 
grammar  being  forced  into  him,  he  began  to  study 
and  think  for  himself. 

Nevertheless,  he  always  found  great  difficulty  in 
learning  anything  at  school,  but  was  passionately 
devoted  to  reading  imaginative  books  and  stories  of 
adventure,  such  as  '  Jack  the  Giant-killer,'  '  Arabian 
Nights,'  *  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,^  *  Sir  Francis 
Drake,'  and  a  host  of  similar  works.  To  these,  in 
fact,  and  not  to  his  painfully  acquired  school  educa- 
tion, he  was  wont  to  attribute  the  formation  of  his 
literary  taste. 

Disraeli's  education  was  by  no  means  thorough. 
There  is  no  record  of  his  having  distinguished  himself 
academically  in  the  slightest  degree.  It  is  related 
of  him,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  was  such  a  duffer 
at  classics  as  to  be  incapable  of  grasping  the  rule 

7 


gS  THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

that  *  ut '  should  be  followed  by  the  subjunctive 
mood.  The  following  account  of  Disraeli's  school- 
days, given  by  one  of  his  school-fellows,  is  quoted 
by  Sir  William  Eraser : 

*  I  cannot  say  that  Benjamin  Disraeli  at  this  period 
of  his  life  exhibited  any  unusual  zeal  for  classical 
studies  ;  and  I  doubt  whether  his  attainments  in 
this  direction,  when  he  left  the  school  for  Mr.  Cogan's 
at  Walthamstow,  reached  higher  than  the  usual  grind 
in  Livy  and  Caesar.  But  I  well  remember  that  he 
was  the  compiler  and  editor  of  a  school  newspaper, 
which  made  its  appearance  on  Saturdays,  when  the 
gingerbread-seller  was  also  to  be  seen,  and  that  the 
right  of  perusal  was  estimated  at  the  cost  of  a  sheet 
of  gingerbread,  the  money  value  of  which  was  in 
those  days  the  third  of  a  penny.' 

Turning  to  literary  men,  we  find  an  imposing 
array  of  dunces.  I  have  not  had  time  to  examine 
into  the  school  experiences  of  more  than  a  limited 
number  of  great  names.  If  the  reader  is  anxious  to 
pursue  the  investigation  further,  he  will  doubtless 
find  that  there  is  scarcely  a  famous  man  of  Letters 
who  made  his  mark  at  school  or  university. 

The  first  person  to  teach  Oliver  Goldsmith  his 
letters  was  a  woman,  who  afterwards  became  village 
schoolmistress,  named  Elizabeth  Delap.  She  did 
not  form  a  very  flattering  opinion  of  her  young 
pupil.  'Never  was  so  dull  a  boy,'  she  was  wont  to 
declare ;  *  he  seemed  impenetrably  stupid.'  From  this 
kind  but  undiscriminating  teacher  Oliver  gravitated 
to  the  village  school,  where  he  learnt  nothing.  Thence 
he  was  sent  to  Elphin  ;  and  of  this  period  of  his 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  99 

school  life  Dr.  Strean  says :  '  He  was  considered  by 
his  contemporaries  and  school-fellows,  with  whom  I 
have  often  conversed  on  the  subject,  as  a  stupid 
heavy  blockhead,  little  better  than  a  fool,  whom 
every  one  made  fun  of.' 

Goldsmith  has  himself,  in  his  *  Inquiry  into  the 
Present  State  of  Polite  Learning,'  recorded  some  very 
striking  impressions  as  to  the  value  of  academic 
success.  *  A  lad  whose  passions  are  not  strong  enough 
in  youth,'  he  writes,  'to  mislead  him  from  that  path 
of  science  which  his  tutors,  and  not  his  inclination, 
have  chalked  out,  by  four  or  five  years'  perseverance, 
probably  obtains  every  advantage  and  honour  his 
college  can  bestow.  I  forget  whether  the  simile  has 
been  used  before,  but  I  would  compare  the  man 
whose  youth  has  been  thus  passed  in  the  tranquillity 
of  dispassionate  prudence  to  liquors  that  never 
ferment,  and  consequently  continue  always  muddy. 
Passions  may  raise  a  commotion  in  the  youthful 
breast,  but  they  disturb  only  to  refine  it.  However 
this  be,  mean  talents  are  often  rewarded  in  colleges 
with  an  easy  subsistence.' 

Another  *  impenetrable  dunce,'  according  to  the 
opinion  of  his  tutor,  an  eminent  Dublin  scholar,  was 
Richard  Sheridan.  He  was  afterwards  sent  to 
Harrow,  where  he  earned  for  himself  a  great  reputa- 
tion for  idleness.  Dr.  Parr,  one  of  the  under-masters, 
wrote  to  Sheridan's  biographer  the  following  expres- 
sion of  opinion  : 

*  There  was  little  in  his  boyhood  worth  communica- 
tion. He  was  inferior  to  many  of  his  schoolfellows 
in  the  ordinary  business  of  a  school,  and   I  do  not 

7—2 


100         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

remember  any  one  instance  in  which  he  distinguished 
himself  by  Latin  or  English  composition,  in  prose  or 
verse.  .  .  .  He  was  at  the  uppermost  part  of  the 
fifth  form,  but  he  never  reached  the  sixth,  and,  if  I 
mistake  not,  he  had  no  opportunity  of  attending  the 
most  difficult  and  the  most  honourable  of  school 
business,  when  the  Greek  plays  were  taught — and  it 
was  the  custom  at  Harrow  to  teach  these  at  least 
every  year.  He  went  through  his  lessons  in  Horace 
and  Virgil  and  Homer  well  enough  for  a  time.  But, 
in  the  absence  of  the  upper  master,  Dr.  Sumner,  it 
once  fell  in  my  way  to  instruct  the  two  upper  forms, 
and  upon  calling  up  Dick  Sheridan,  I  found  him  not 
only  slovenly  in  construing,  but  unusually  defective 
in  his  Greek  grammar.  ...  I  ought  to  have  told  you 
that  Richard,  when  a  boy,  was  a  great  reader  of 
English  poetry ;  but  his  exercises  afforded  no  proof 
of  his  proficiency.' 

The  latter  statement  speaks  volumes  for  a  method 
of  teaching  which  failed  to  evoke,  even  in  such  a 
master  of  English  literature  as  Sheridan  eventually 
proved  himself  to  be,  a  proper  development  of  his 
greatest  talent.  No  doubt  the  exercises  in  which 
so  little  proficiency  was  shown  were  compulsorily 
executed  against  the  grain,  being  of  such  a  pedantic 
character  that  no  sane  schoolboy  could  possibly  be 
found  to  evince  the  smallest  interest  in  them. 

Dean  Swift  and  Sir  Walter  Scott  were  both  dull 
boys.  The  former  says  of  himself  that  he  was 
'  stopped  of  his  degree  for  dulness  and  insufficiency.* 
Scott,  in  his  autobiographical  sketch,  does  not  make 
himself  out  to  have  been  the  dunce  that  he  really 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  loi 

was  supposed  to  be  at  school.  If  nQt,  bright jit Ms 
lessons,  however,  he  was  certainly  =  clever  in' other 
ways  and  capable  of  thinking  for  himself.  Auexctj-A 
lent  illustration  of  this  is  coiltalried  in  the  stoVy  that 
though  Scott,  as  a  boy,  used  invariably  to  go  to  sleep 
in  church  in  the  course  of  the  sermon,  yet,  when 
questioned  about  the  latter  afterwards,  he  was 
generally  able  to  sketch  out  most  of  the  points 
dwelt  upon  by  the  preacher — the  explanation  being, 
of  course,  that,  given  the  text,  he  was  able  to  follow 
the  probable  train  of  thought  inspired  by  its  wording. 
Summing  up  Scott's  attainments,  a  biographer  gives 
expression  to  the  opinion  that  he  was  *  self-educated 
in  every  branch  of  knowledge  he  ever  turned  to 
account  in  the  works  of  his  genius.' 

Neither  Burns  nor  Carlyle  was  a  scholar.  The 
former  received  a  grounding  in  grammar,  reading, 
and  writing.  He  acquired  a  little  French,  but  learnt 
no  Latin  at  all.  Whatever  he  knew  he  owed  to  the 
fact  that  he  exercised  his  own  taste  for  knowledge 
by  choosing  his  own  books  and  devouring  only  what 
appealed  to  his  mind.  Carlyle,  like  many  another 
famous  man  of  letters,  had  little  Latin  and  less 
Greek.  *  In  the  classical  field,^  he  wrote,  *  I  am  truly 
as  nothing.'  For  mathematics  he  showed  a  certain 
amount  of  inclination,  but  even  in  that  field  did  not 
succeed  in  carrying  off  any  prizes.  His  own  opinion 
of  a  conventional  education  is  very  tersely  rendered 
by  his  exclamation  :  *  Academia !  High  School 
instructors  of  youth  !     Oh,  ye  unspeakable  V 

The  poet  Wordsworth  was  educated  at  the  grammar 
school  at  Hawkshead.     He  always  declared  that  the 


I02         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

great,  merit  cf  thescihool  was  the  liberty  allowed  to 
the  scholars.  -  No  attempt  was  made  to  cram  or  to 
produce  m6<^tl  pupils.  -Within  limits  they  appear,  in 
fact,  to  have  iDeen  allowed  to  read  precisely  what  they 
pleased.  In  this  way  Wordsworth  received  in  every 
sense  of  the  term  a  liberal  education  ;  and  when  he 
went  to  Cambridge,  *he  enjoyed  even  more  thoroughly 
than  at  Hawkshead  whatever  advantages  might  be 
derived  from  the  neglect  of  his  teachers.' 

The  poet  had  a  great  contempt  for  academical 
training,  and  refused  to  go  through  the  usual  Cam- 
bridge course.  He  finally  graduated  as  B.A.  without 
honours,  afterwards  recording  his  indifference  to 
academic  distinction  in  the  well-known  lines : 

Of  College  labours,  of  the  Lecturer's  room, 
All  studded  round,  as  thick  as  chairs  could  stand, 
With  loyal  students  faithful  to  their  books, 
Half-and-half  idlers,  hardy  recusants, 
And  honest  dunces — of  important  days, 
Examinations,  when  the  man  was  weighed 
As  in  a  balance  !     Of  excessive  hopes, 
Tremblings  withal  and  commendable  fears. 
Small  jealousies,  and  triumphs  good  or  bad — 
Let  others  that  know  more  speak  as  they  know. 
Such  glory  was  but  little  sought  by  me, 
And  little  won. 

More  forcibly  expressed  was  Rousseau's  derision 
of  ordinary  educational  methods.  Writing  in  his 
*  Confessions  *  about  the  school  days  of  his  cousin 
and  himself,  he  says  :  *  We  were  sent  together  to 
Bossey,  to  board  with  the  Protestant  minister  Lam- 
bercier,  in  order  to  learn,  together  with  Latin,  all  the 
sorry   trash   which   is   included   under  the  name  of 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  103 

education.  ...  M.  Lambercier  was  a  very  intel- 
ligent person  who,  without  neglecting  our  education, 
never  imposed  excessive  tasks  upon  us.  The  fact 
that,  in  spite  of  my  dislike  to  restraint,  I  have  never 
recalled  my  hours  of  study  with  any  feeling  of  disgust, 
and  also  that,  even  if  I  did  not  learn  much  from 
him,  I  learnt  without  difficulty  what  I  did  learn,  and 
never  forgot  it,  is  sufficient  proof  that  his  system  of 
instruction  was  a  good  one.' 

As  far  as  the  history  of  science  is  concerned,  there 
is  a  long  array  of  self-cultured  men  to  whom  most  of 
the  discoveries  that  have  been  made  are  due.  In  no 
other  occupation  is  the  faculty  of  thinking  originally 
and  independently  more  essential  than  in  the  pursuit 
of  scientific  knowledge,  and  it  is  significant  that 
amongst  famous  scientists  more  instances  are  to  be 
found  of  men  who  owe  nothing  to  school  instruction 
or  academic  training  than  in  almost  any  other  walk 
of  life. 

In  this  connection  mention  has  already  been  made 
of  the  famous  botanist  Linnaeus.  The  whole  of  his 
school  life  was  one  unremitting  protest  against  the 
usual  educational  methods  of  endeavouring  to  force 
the  mind  away  from  its  natural  bent.  Linnaeus 
detested  metaphysics,  Latin,  Greek,  and  every  sub- 
ject except  physics  and  mathematics,  in  which  he 
usually  outstripped  his  fellow-pupils.  But  his  nose 
was  kept  to  the  grindstone  until  the  authorities  in- 
formed his  father  that  he  was  not  fit  for  a  learned 
education,  and  recommended  his  being  given  some 
manual  employment.  Thus  were  twelve  precious 
years  of  the  life  of  one  of  the  most  gifted  men  of 


I04         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

science,  save  for  what  he  accomplished  out  of  school 
hours,  wasted  to  no  purpose.  It  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  he  spoke  of  one  of  his  masters  as  '  a 
passionate  and  morose  man,  better  calculated  for 
extinguishing  a  youth's  talents  than  for  improving 
them/ 

One  of  the  greatest  anatomists  that  ever  lived, 
John  Hunter,  who  numbered  Dr.  Jenner  amongst  his 
pupils,  was  scarcely  educated  at  all  for  the  first 
twenty  years  of  his  life.  Mr.  Smiles  states  that  *'  it 
was  with  difficulty  that  he  acquired  the  arts  of  read- 
ing and  writing.'  Originally  a  carpenter,  he  became 
assistant  to  his  brother,  who  was  established  in 
London  as  a  surgeon.  He  acquired  all  his  know- 
ledge of  anatomy  in  the  dissecting-room,  and  owed 
everything  he  had  learnt  to  his  own  hard  work  and 
habit  of  thinking  things  out  for  himself. 

'  The  brilliant  Sir  Humphry  Davy,'  says  Mr.  Smiles, 
'  was  no  cleverer  than  other  boys.  His  teacher,  Dr. 
Cardew,  once  said  of  him,  **  While  he  was  with  me  I 
could  not  discern  the  faculties  by  which  he  was  so 
much  distinguished."  Indeed,  Davy  himself  in  after 
life  considered  it  fortunate  that  he  had  been  left  to 
"  enjoy  so  much  idleness  "  at  school.' 

Newton  was  always  at  the  bottom  of  his  class, 
until  he  suddenly  took  it  into  his  head  to  give  a  boy, 
whom  he  had  already  thrashed  in  another  sense,  an 
intellectual  beating.  *  It  is  very  probable,'  writes 
Sir  David  Brewster  in  his  biography,  *  that  Newton's 
idleness  arose  from  the  occupation  of  his  mind  with 
subjects  in  which  he  felt  a  deeper  interest.'  Nobody 
could  have  penned  a  more  incisive  indictment  against 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  105 

the  imbecility  of  an  education  system  that  forces  all 
boys,  irrespective  of  their  wishes  or  talents,  into  a 
fixed  groove.  It  was  Newton  who,  in  answer  to  an 
inquiry  as  to  how  the  principle  of  gravity  was  dis- 
covered, replied  :  *  By  always  thinking  of  it/ 

When  Watt,  as  a  boy,  was  engaged  in  investigating 
the  condensation  of  steam,  his  aunt,  who  was  sitting 
with  him  at  the  tea-table,  exclaimed : 

*  James,  I  never  saw  such  an  idle  boy !  Take  a 
book  or  employ  yourself  usefully.  For  the  last  half 
hour  you  have  not  spoken  a  word,  but  taken  off  the 
lid  of  that  kettle  and  put  it  on  again,  holding  now  a 
cup  and  now  a  silver  spoon  over  the  steam,  watching 
how  it  rises  from  the  spout,  and  counting  the  drops 
of  water.' 

In  this  sympathetic  way  children  are  usually  en- 
couraged to  think  by  their  elders.  Watt's  faculties 
were  developed  entirely  at  home.  He  was  sent  to  a 
public  elementary  school  in  Scotland  ;  but,  fortunately 
for  science,  he  was  so  delicate  that  he  was  nearly 
always  absent  through  indisposition.  A  visitor,  who 
found  the  boy  drawing  lines  and  circles  on  the  hearth 
with  a  piece  of  coloured  chalk,  once  remonstrated 
with  Mr.  James  Watt,  senior,  for  allowing  his  son  to 
waste  his  time  at  home.  Watt  had  the  good  fortune, 
however,  to  possess  an  intelligent  father,  who  en- 
couraged the  boy  as  far  as  it  lay  in  his  power. 

Left  to  his  own  devices.  Watt  not  only  contrived  to 
make  himself  the  foremost  engineer  of  his  time,  but 
he  also  developed  his  talents  in  many  other  directions. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  says  of  him  that  'his  talents  and 
fancy  overflowed  on  every  subject'    And  M.  Arago, 


io6        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

the  French  scientist,  in  his  memoir  of  Watt,  expresses 
the  view  that  the  latter,  in  spite  of  his  excellent 
memory,  '  might,  nevertheless,  not  have  peculiarly 
distinguished  himself  among  the  youthful  prodigies 
of  ordinary  schools.  He  could  never  have  learned 
his  lessons  like  a  parrot,  for  he  experienced  a  neces- 
sity of  carefully  elaborating  the  intellectual  elements 
presented  to  his  attention,  and  Nature  had  peculiarly 
endowed  him  with  the  faculty  of  meditation.' 

This  is  only  a  roundabout  way  of  saying  that  the 
conventional  process  of  cramming  would  have  de- 
stroyed the  fine  intellectual  faculties  possessed  by 
Watt.  But  if  in  his  case,  why  not  in  that  of  another  ? 
That  is  the  strange  thing  about  the  light  shed  upon 
educational  problems  by  cases  like  that  of  Watt, 
Newton,  and  other  men  of  commanding  genius. 
People  only  perceive  in  it  a  half-truth.  They  think 
that  it  is  only  in  these  exceptional  instances  that  the 
mind  is  incapable  of  being  developed  by  ordinary 
rough-and-ready  methods. 

f     Upon  what  grounds  is  such  an  absurd  deduction 
1  founded  ?     It  is  true  that   individuals  differ  widely 
I  as  to  the  capabilities  of  their  mental  machinery;  but 
S  it  does  not  follow  that  the  intellectual  fibre  of  one 
person  is  more  delicate  than  that  of  another. 
\    The  difference  is  not  mental,  but  physical.     It  is 
because  a  boy  is  healthy,  and  not  because  his  intel- 
lectual fibre  is  coarse,  that  he  is  better  able  to  with- 
stand the  strain  of  an   educational  training  than   a 
weaker  and  more  nervous  boy. 

Until  the  discovery  is  made  that  all  minds  are 
sensitive,  when   they   have    been    actually   reached, 


EVIDENCE  OF  HISTORY  107 

people  will  go  on  ignorantly  destroying  the  finer 
faculties  under  the  impression  that  genius  or  talent 
is  a  very  rare  thing,  and  can  always  shift  for  itself. 

Yet,  as  I  have  attempted  to  show,  the  evidence 
of  history  points  conclusively  to  the  fact  that  the 
contrary  is  the  case. 

Is  it  really  supposed  that  the  great  names  that 
have  been  handed  down  to  posterity  represent  all 
the  genius  to  which  the  world  has  given  birth  ? 

The  idea  is  preposterous. 

For  every  man  of  genius  or  talent  who  has  been 
permitted  to  survive,  education  systems  have  killed  a 
hundred. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  Dr.  Rothmann,  there  would 
probably  have  been  no  Linnaeus  to  revolutionize  the 
system  of  botanical  classification.  __Had  tyrannical 
parents  and  schoolmasters  compelled  Watt  and 
Newton  to  give  up  mechanics  and  scientific  study  for 
a  thorough  cramming  in  Latin  grammar  and  Greek 
roots,  we  might  to-day  be  without  a  steam-engine  or 
a  theory  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  Even  the  genius 
of  Napoleon  and  Wellington  might  easily  have  been 
crushed  under  the  auspices  of  a  modern  competitive 
examination. 

Would  stupid  Oliver  Goldsmith  have  written  his 
immortal  *  Vicar  of  Wakefield  '  and  '  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer,'  or  would  idle  Sheridan  have  penned  the 
exquisite  comedies  that  have  not  to  this  day  been 
approached  by  any  subsequent  writer,  if  their  idleness 
and  stupidity  had  been  submitted  to  the  test  of  an 
enforced  academic  training  for  classical  or  mathe- 
matical honours  ? 


io8        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

Surely  the  evidence  of  history  points  to  only  one 
conclusion — namely,  that  all  the  genius  in  the  world 
cannot  survive  the  hopeless  imbecility  of  educational 
methods,  except  by  successfully  dodging  them 
through  stupidity  and  idleness,  whilst  the  faculties 
develop  themselves  at  stolen  intervals. 


^ 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   APOTHEOSIS   OF   CRAM 

We  have  reached  a  point  at  which  it  is  advisable  to 
take  a  broad  survey  of  the  direction  in  which  educa- 
tion systems  are  hurrying  the  world.  Have  these 
educational  methods  a  definite  objective,  or  is  their 
sole  purpose  the  production  of  scholars  manufactured 
en  bloc  ? 

These  are  important  questions  that  need  careful 
answering.  Upon  the  face  of  it,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  in  this  country,  at  least,  educational  establish- 
ments have,  up  to  the  present,  aimed  only  at  turning 
out  scholars  of  certain  intellectual  types.  The  result 
of  this  process  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding  pages 
to  be  sufficiently  disastrous  in  its  eflfects  upon  its 
victims.  There  are,  in  fact,  few  social  evils  which 
cannot  be  traced,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  its  agency. 

But  as  yet  there  has  been  no  dominant  motive- 
power,  working  invisibly  towards  a  definite  end, 
behind  the  educational  machinery  of  the  country. 

A  general  feeling  has  been  fomented  of  late,  how- 
ever, that  all  education,  from  the  lowest  step  to  the 
highest,  ought  to  be  co-ordinated  and  organized  into 
a  single  piece  of  State-directed  machinery.  The 
danger  of  this  can  only  be  appreciated  by  an  examina- 


no         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

tion  of  the  effects  already  produced  by  such  a  system 
in  other  countries. 

Germany  offers  in  this  connection  the  best  possible 
example.  The  interference  of  the  State  in  educa- 
tional matters  has  there  been  brought  to  perfection. 
Absolute  control  is  exercised  by  the  Government  in 
everything  appertaining  to  the  instruction  of  youth 
all  over  Germany.  The  Emperor  has  become  so 
autocratic  in  the  exercise  of  this  control  in  the  king- 
dom of  Prussia,  that  he  talks  openly  about  manufac- 
turing this  or  that  kind  of  educational  article  exactly 
in  the  manner  in  which  a  manufacturer  would  discuss 
putting  some  commodity  upon  the  market. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  Prussian  Government  to  disguise  the  political 
uses  to  which  their  supreme  authority  in  educational 
matters  is  put.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Emperor 
William  II.,  on  succeeding  to  the  throne,  was  to  issue 
the  most  plain-spoken  instructions  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  Prussia  in  reference  to  State  interference 
with  the  schools  for  political  purposes. 

'  For  a  long  time,'  it  was  declared  in  the  royal 
decree,*  *  I  have  been  occupied  with  the  thought  how 
to  make  the  school  useful  for  the  purpose  of  counter- 
acting the  spread  of  socialistic  and  communistic 
ideas.  .  .  .  The  history  of  modern  times  down  to 
the  present  day  must  be  introduced  more  than 
hitherto  into  the  curriculum,  and  the   pupils  must 

*  For  information  on  this  and  many  other  points  connected 
with  the  subject  of  education  in  Prussia,  I  am  indebted  to 
Mr.  Michael  E.  Sadler's  special  report  to  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion on  *  Problems  in  Prussian  Secondary  Education  for  Boys.' 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  OF  CRAM         in 

be  shown  that  the  executive  power  of  the  State  alone 
can  protect  for  each  individual  his  family,  his  free- 
dom, and  his  rights.' 

Later  on  follows  the  recommendation  that,  *  by- 
striking  references  to  actual  facts,  it  should  be  made 
clear  even  to  young  people  that  a  well-ordered  con- 
stitution under  secure  monarchical  rule  is  the  indis- 
pensable condition  for  the  protection  and  welfare  of 
each  individual,  both  as  a  citizen  and  as  a  worker ; 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  doctrines  of  social  demo- 
cracy are,  in  point  of  fact,  infeasible ;  and  that,  if 
they  were  put  into  practice,  the  liberty  of  each  indi- 
vidual would  be  subjected  to  intolerable  restraint, 
even  within  the  very  circle  of  the  home.  The  ideas 
of  the  Socialists  are  sufficiently  defined  through  their 
own  writings  for  it  to  be  possible  to  depict  them  in  a 
way  which  will  shock  the  feelings  and  the  practical 
good-sense  even  of  the  young/ 

The  danger  of  this  direct  State  control  is  obvious. 
It  renders  all  liberty  of  thought  absolutely  impossible. 
Politics,  religion,  social  views — all  are  systematically 
worked  into  the  curriculum  for  the  object  of  stifling 
independent  ideas,  criticisms,  and  whatever  else  may 
be  of  value  to  the  interests  of  the  community  at 
large,  although  possibly  highly  inconvenient  to  the 
established  order. 

To  cram  the  youth  of  the  nation  after  this  fashion 
with  all  the  facts  and  fancies  that  may  happen  to 
suit  the  weaknesses  of  the  national  constitution,  is 
exactly  the  way  in  which  to  bring  about  the  decay 
of  both  Government  and  country.  Merely  from  a 
political  standpoint,  therefore,  nothing  could  be  more 


/ 


112        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

disastrous  to  the  State  than  to  make  use  of  its  power 
of  educational  control  in  order  to  stifle  opposition 
and  independent  criticism. 

It  is  equally  clear  that,  wherever  the  Government 
possesses  this  power,  it  will  use  it  as  far  as  is  practi- 
cable for  the  purpose  of  self-preservation.  Almost 
for  a  century  the  Prussian  authorities  have  been 
getting  the  control  of  their  national  schools  more 
and  more  into  their  own  hands.  They  have  now 
succeeded  in  bringing  the  application  of  the  theory 
of  State  interference  to  the  high-water  mark  of  prac- 
ticability. From  the  rudiments  of  the  alphabet  to 
the  history  of  economics,  everything  in  the  Prussian 
curriculum  may  be  suspected  of  serving  some  political 
purpose.  The  schoolboy  is  regarded  by  the  authori- 
ties as  a  mere  pawn,  to  be  moved  on  the  national 
board  in  strict  accordance  with  the  political  necessities 
of  the  hour. 

For  some  years  past,  the  attention  of  Prussia  and  of 
the  whole  German  Empire  has  been  concentrated  upon 
the  commercial  rivalry  of  the  different  nations  of  the 
world.  The  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  educational  aim 
has  been  to  produce  a  percentage-calculating  machine 
on  a  wholesale  plan,  equipped  with  certain  devices 
for  the  successful  carrying  on  of  trade.  The  German 
authorities  became  impregnated  with  the  belief  that 
commercial  supremacy  could  best  be  attained  by 
organizing  the  whole  nation  into  a  uniform  body  of 
workers  trained  to  co-operation.  Everything  of  late 
years  has  been  subordinated  to  this  design. 

The  commercial  success  of  the  scheme  has  been 
notorious.     German  manufacturers  have  been  gaining 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  OF  CRAM         113 

ground  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  consular  reports 
at  the  Foreign  Office  are  filled  with  pessimistic  warn- 
ings about  the  decline  of  British  trade  at  various 
points  where  it  was  once  supreme,  and  with  signifi- 
cant statistics  that  show  the  rapid  advance  of  German 
commercial  enterprise. 

But  it  does  not  follow,  because  Germany  seems  to 
have  shot  ahead  of  us  by  leaps  and  bounds  of  late 
years,  that  she  has  adopted  sound  means  to  accom- 
plish this  end.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  expedients  by 
which  this  commercial  supremacy  has  been  attained 
are  an  exaggeration  of  the  worst  evils  of  education 
systems,  then  Germany  has  started  upon  a  downward 
path  which  must  eventually  lead  her  to  the  brink  of 
ruin. 

And  this  is  precisely  the  case.  Cramming  has 
been  brought  throughout  Germany  to  the  level  of  a 
fine  art.  It  is  done,  I  must  confess — for  I  was  my- 
self subjected  to  the  process  for  some  years — more 
completely  and  effectively  than  in  this  country. 
That  is  to  say,  the  pupil  is  not  crammed  in  such  an 
idiotic  fashion  that  he  forgets  all  that  has  been  stuffed 
into  him  immediately  he  has  left  school.  The  drill- 
ing, however  wrong  it  may  be  in  principle,  is  thorough 
enough,  in  all  conscience.  It  may  be,  as  it  is  else- 
where, the  pestle  and  mortar  system.  But  at  least 
the  pestle  is  applied  consistently,  and  each  ingredient 
is  perfectly  mixed  before  the  next  component  is 
introduced. 

If,  therefore,  the  object  of  education  be  to  produce 
an  article  of  a  certain  type  or  consistency,  then  the 
Prussian  school  stands  far  in  advance  of  our  own 


114         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

cramming  institutions.  It  may  well  be  taken  in  that 
case  as  a  model  for  us  to  copy. 

People  should,  however,  ask  themselves  these 
questions  :  Is  it  international  commercial  rivalry  that 
produces  the  necessity  of  a  State  system  of  educa- 
tion to  equip  the  nation  for  the  struggle  ?  Or  is  it 
the  State  system  of  education,  with  its  organized 
attempt  to  manufacture  a  race  of  traders,  which  has 
artificially  created  the  state  of  commercial  warfare 
into  which  we  are  rapidly  drifting  ? 

The  answer  seems  to  me  to  be  plain  enough. 

The  individuality  of  individuals  is  rapidly  disap- 
pearing throughout  that  part  of  the  world  which  has 
chosen  to  subject  itself  to  uniform  education  systems. 
One  Englishman  is  much  like  another,  in  the  same 
way  that  Russians,  or  Germans,  or  Frenchmen  resemble 
each  other.  In  other  words,  the  only  individuality 
which  education  is  leaving  us  is  that  of  nationality ; 
and  the  reason  of  this  is  because  the  manners,  the 
customs,  and  the  school  systems  of  various  countries 
still  differ  to  a  certain  extent. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  the  individual  competing 
against  the  individual,  we  are  rapidly  approaching 
the  point  where  the  whole  strength  and  resources  of 
each  nation  will  be  employed  to  co-operate  against 
the  rest  of  the  world.  And  this  is  no  mere  natural 
outcome  of  evolution.  Germany,  with  her  extra- 
ordinary cuteness  and  foresight,  invented  the  game 
for  her  own  benefit  a  generation  or  two  ago.  She 
has  spent  the  best  part  of  half  a  century  equipping 
herself,  hand  over  fist,  for  this  kind  of  commercial 
contest. 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  OF  CRAM         115 

But  what  is  she  sacrificing  in  order  to  obtain  this 
triumph  of  the  trader? 

/  There  cannot  be  a  question  that  she  is  deliberately 
'^  and  systematically  throwing  away  the  most  precious 
of  all  human  possessions — the  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual.     At   the  Berlin   Conference   on    Secondary 
Education,   held    in    1890,    Dr.  Virchow   observed  : 
*  I  regret  that  I  cannot  bear  my  testimony  to   our 
having  made  progress  in  forming  the  character  of 
pupils   in   our   schools.      When    I    look    back   over 
the  forty  years  during  which  I   have  been  Professor 
and  Examiner — a  period  during  which  I  have  been 
brought    in    contact   not   only   with  physicians  and 
sdentific   investigators,   but    also   with   many   other 
types   of  men — I    cannot  say  that  I    have  the   im- 
pression that  we  have  made  material   advances  in 
training  up  men  with  strength  of  character.     On  the 
contrary,  I  fear  that  we  are  on  a  downward  path. 
The  number  of  '*  characters  "  becomes  smaller.     And 
this  is  connected  with  the  shrinkage  in  private  and 
individual  work  done  during  a  lad's  school  life.     For 
it  is  only  by  means  of  independent  work  that  the 
pupil  learns  to  hold  his  own  against  external  diffi- 
culties, and  to  find  in  his  own  strength,  in  his  own 
nature,  in  his  own  being,  the  means  of  resisting  such 
difficulties  and  of  prevailing  over  them.' 

The  inevitable  result  of  this  sacrifice  of  indi- 
viduality must  be  the  intellectual  decay  of  the  nation, 
or  at  least  its  degeneration  into  a  state  of  hopeless 
mediocrity.  Unless,  therefore,  Germany  can  per- 
suade other  countries  to  adopt  similar  tactics,  and  to 
meet  her  on  the  plane  where  she  has  already  obtained 

8—2 


ii6         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

the  start  of  a  generation,  she  must  come  hopelessly 
to  grief  in  the  future. 

Unfortunately,  there  seems  every  indication  that 
the  statesmen  who  lead  rival  nations  are  only  too 
ready  to  follow  Germany's  blind  lead.  In  this 
country  it  is  only  the  blessed  ignorance  of  the  people 
which  is  holding  back  those  who  are  anxious  to 
commit  the  folly  that  has  put  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence  into  German  pockets,  at  the  cost  of  taking 
originality  and  character  out  of  German  heads. 

This  educational  suicide,  it  must  also  be  remem- 
bered, can  only  be  committed  without  serious  social 
disturbance  in  a  despotically-governed  country  like 
the  German  Empire.  In  England,  with  our  system 
of  party  government,  a  complete  measure  of  State 
control  in  educational  matters  would  create  a  political 
pandemonium  that  would  be  little  short  of  appalling. 

The  party  struggles  of  the  future  would,  if  this 
Prussian  system  were  transplanted  here,  centre 
round  educational  control.  The  schools  would  no 
longer  be  regarded  as  establishments  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  youth  ;  they  would  be  looked  upon  simply  as 
the  nursery  of  the  future  voter.  A  Conservative 
Government  would  cram  everything  into  the  curri- 
culum calculated  to  stifle  inconveniently  progressive 
ideas,  whilst  a  Radical  Government  would  try  to 
banish  from  the  schools  all  established  beliefs  and 
conventions. 

Between  these  opposing  stools  the  manufactured 
scholar  would  fall  lamentably  to  the  ground.  He 
would  be  neither  fish,  flesh,  nor  fowl.  There  would 
be  a  perpetual  chopping  and  changing  in  the  methods 


( 


or  th: 
l/NIVERf 

or 


THE  APOTHEOSIS*^W^AM  117 

of  his  education,  from  which  he  would  not  even  derive 
the  benefit,  so  gratefully  acknowledged  by  Words- 
worth, of  being  neglected  by  his  teachers. 

To  talk  of  beating  Germany  at  her  own  game  is, 
therefore,  the  height  of  absurdity.  Nothing  could 
result  from  such  an  endeavour  but  ruin  to  the 
country.  Under  our  party  system  it  is  obvious 
that  it  could  not  be  done  with  the  remotest  chance 
of  success.  And  even  if  it  were  possible  to  obtain 
steady  uniform  State  interference,  working  always 
towards  a  specific  end,  German  methods  would  only 
be  adopted  at  the  expense  of  increasing  the  pressure 
of  cramming  en  bloc,  and  thereby  multiplying  the 
evils  which  have  been  but  faintly  depicted  in  the 
foregoing  pages. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   GREAT   FALLACY 

That  the  world  is  badly  ordered  for  humanity  is  a 
self-evident  truth  of  which  the  observant  scarcely 
need  reminding.  It  is  equally  obvious,  from  the 
exquisite  order  and  symmetry  of  animal  and  vege- 
table life,  that  Providence  is  not  to  blame  for  the 
colossal  mess  into  which  civilization  has  managed  to 
lead  the  majority  of  mankind. 

Man  is  himself  responsible  for  the  present  state  of 

j human  affairs  ;  and  although  great  things  have  been 

iundeniably  accomplished  during  the  progress  of  the 

\iations,  the  magnificent  achievements  of  exceptional 

individuals  pale  beside  the  stupendous  blundering  of 

the  many. 

It  must  surely  be  clear  to  everybody  that  there  has 
been  some  evil  influence  at  work  to  arrest  the  fair 
promise  and  development  of  the  human  race.  The 
splendid  march  of  intellectual  progress  from  the 
dark  ages  to  the  brilliant  dawn  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  its  glittering  array  of  master  minds 
and  its  titanic  roll  of  genius,  has  been  suddenly 
brought  to  a  dead  halt.  Here  and  there,  during 
the  past  generation,  great  figures  have  struggled  up 
on  to  the  world's  stage  and  grappled  with  the  ebb- 


THE  GREAT  FALLACY  119 

tide.  But  the  majestic  stream  of  mediocrity  has 
swept  away  their  dykes,  and  obliterated  their  land- 
marks with  its  increasing  volume. 

The  remarkable  fact  can  hardly  have  escaped 
attention  that  the  more  humanity  attempts  to  equip 
itself  for  the  serious  business  of  life,  by  forcing  itself 
into  an  educational  strait-waistcoat,  the  more  rapid 
becomes  the  disappearance  of  character  and  genius, 
and  even  of  ordinary  talent.  Everybody  is  getting 
ground  down  to  a  level.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to 
point  to  a  single  civilized  man  and  say  :  *  There  is 
somebody  in  whom  every  faculty  has  been  developed 
and  natural  talent  perfected  to  its  utmost  capability.' 
The  most  that  can  be  said  of  the  individual  is : 
*  There  goes  a  Cambridge  man  or  a  grammar- 
school  man,  and  when  you  have  knocked  all  the 
nonsense  out  of  him  you'll  find  he's  not  a  bad  fellow 
at  bottom.' 

We  are  not  what  we  have  made  ourselves,  but  what 
we  have  chosen  to  allow  others  to  make  us.  What- 
ever may  once  have  been  the  nursery  of  the  human 
race,  it  is  now  to  a  great  extent  the  school.  Some 
part — it  generally  is  the  best  part — of  education 
takes  place  outside  the  class-room  ;  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  atmosphere  of  home  is  generally 
impregnated  with  the  conventional  traditions  of  the 
school  and  of  the  university. 

The  evil  influence  that  is  so  obviously  undermining 
social  and  national  life  must,  therefore,  first  be  sought 
in  the  principles  upon  which  education  systems  have 
been  founded. 

Nothing  is  more  astonishing  than  to  reflect  upon 


I20         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

the  unintelligent  grounds  on  which  people  base  their 
adherence  to  the  principles  of  modern  education. 
They  are  unable,  in  the  first  place,  to  get  over  the 
fact  that  their  forefathers  were  brought  up  in  the 
same  fashion  before  them.  It  is  a  sheer  impossibility 
for  most  people  to  question  anything  that  has  been 
going  on  for  any  length  of  time  unchecked. 

The  undisputed  possession  of  a  custom  for  so  many 
years  converts  it  into  the  legal  property  of  the  nation, 
whence  it  derives  a  sacred  character,  and  nobody 
dreams  of  meddling  with  it.  Any  abuses  it  may 
bring  in  its  train  are  then  conveniently  ascribed  to 
the  perversity  of  Providence.  The  cherished  conven- 
tion is  never  questioned.  That  is  the  remarkable 
thing  about  it.  People  can  be  brought  to  under- 
stand, by  means  of  a  flourish  of  dazzling  prospectuses 
and  newspaper  advertisements,  that  a  bicycle  is  an 
improvement  on  a  bone-shaker,  or  that  pneumatic 
tyres  are  more  comfortable  on  rough  roads  than  iron- 
rimmed  wheels.  But  that  appears  to  be  the  set  limit 
of  their  comprehension. 

They  are  capable  of  being  made  to  grasp,  after 
nearly  exhausting  the  resources  of  a  wealthy  syndi- 
cate, something  that  obviously  affects  their  material 
comfort.  But  progress  in  ideas,  or  anything  in  the 
shape  of  moral  revolution,  has  to  undergo  a  thousand- 
fold more  tortuous  process  before  it  can  be  made  to 
filter  through  a  convention.  The  academic  product 
is,  it  must  be  remembered,  a  bundle  of  conventions. 
If  the  article  has  been  properly  manufactured,  and 
bears  the  hall-mark  of  the  maker  and  the  stamp  of 
the  country  of  its  origin,  there  is  nothing  else  there 


THE  GREAT  FALLACY  121 

for  the  truth  to  filter  into.  It  simply  drops  through 
and  vapourizes  without  disturbing  anything. 

Conventionality  is  therefore  an  insuperable 
obstacle,  as  far  as  the  majority  of  minds  are  con- 
cerned, to  the  discovery  that  the  estabHshed  principles 
of  education  are  absolutely  false.  These  principles 
will  never  be  questioned.  It  is  good  enough  for  the 
average  man  that  his  fellow-creatures  have  been  con- 
tented with  them  since  time  immemorial,  and  that 
they  are  diligently  practised  in  the  schools  and 
colleges  whose  names  have  been  household  words  for 
generations  past. 

Next  to  this  antiquated  conservatism  of  the  least 
intelligent  and  most  dispiriting  type,  comes  the  false 
shame  that  the  majority  of  people  exhibit  when 
caught  displaying  ignorance  of  any  of  the  facts  which 
cramming  systems  have  pronounced  to  be  indispen- 
sable to  a  general  education.  Probably  more  real 
culture  is  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the  ridiculous 
assumption  that  everybody  must  be  a  walking  ency- 
clopaedia, than  by  all  the  Philistine  conventions  and 
stupidities  put  together. 

In  the  course  of  a  recent  conversation  with  an 
exceptionally  brilliant  woman  of  my  acquaintance, 
it  transpired  that  she  believed  Winchester  and 
Cambridge  to  be  in  the  same  county.  This  lack  of 
geographical  knowledge  did  not  appear,  however,  to 
have  impaired  her  intellectual  faculties.  There  are 
many  persons  who  can  accurately  locate  any  town  in 
England,  and  yet  are  vastly  inferior  in  mental  capacity 
to  the  lady  who  thought  that  Cambridge  was  in 
Hampshire. 


\ 


122         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

Why  should  an  individual  know  more  than  it  is 
useful  and  convenient  for  him  to  know?  For  the 
student  of  foreign  politics  it  is  essential  to  be  aware 
of  the  geographical  difference  between  Tokio  and' 
Peking  ;  but  of  what  earthly  use  would  this  know- 
ledge be  to  a  man  who  devoted  the  whole  of  his  life 
to  inquiring  into  the  domestic  routine  of  the  extinct 
dodo,  or  to  the  improvement  of  agriculture  by  the 
application  of  scientific  manures  ? 

Life  is  short,  and  it  is  only  possible  within  the 
limits  of  the  brief  span  allotted  to  us  upon  earth 
to  acquire  a  certain  number  of  facts.  It  is  mon- 
strously absurd  to  sacrifice  our  best  years  in  stuffing 
so  many  facts  into  the  brain,  in  order  to  avoid  being 
laughed  at  by  a  few  thin-minded  pedants  as  an 
ignoramus.  Some  consolation,  at  least,  might  surely 
be  derived  from  the  reflection  that  many  of  the 
greatest  geniuses  whom  the  world  has  produced  were 
profoundly  ignorant  as  to  ninety  per  cent,  of  the 
things  which  are  considered  to  be  indispensable 
knowledge  at  the  present  day. 

Nobody  can  hope  to  read  all  the  books  that  are 
popularly  supposed  to  have  been  digested  by  the  well- 
educated  man.  It  would  be  impossible  to  get  through 
a  tithe  of  them.  Yet  how  many  people  there  are  who 
will  sooner  tell  a  deliberate  lie,  than  acknowledge 
having  omitted  to  read  some  classic  that  happens  to 
be  mentioned  in  the  course  of  conversation !  And 
this  is  simply  due  to  the  infatuated  belief  that  culture 
consists  in  stuffing  one's  self  with  the  ideas  of  other 
people.  A  man  whose  brain  was  teeming  with  his 
own  thoughts  and  creations,  but  who  had  neglected 


THE  GREAT  FALLACY  123 

to  stock  it  with  the  hundred  thousand  conventional 
facts  culled  from  the  hundred  best  books  selected  for 
him  by  other  people,  would  be  looked  upon  as  an 
uneducated  boor  by  cultured  pedants  of  the  conven- 
tional type. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  this  false  shame, 
inspired  by  an  unwholesome  terror  of  public  ridicule, 
plays  a  very  important  part  in  tying  people  to  the 
apron-strings  of  education,  and  warping  their  judg- 
ment. 

But  there  is  also  a  third  factor  which  must  be  taken 
seriously  into  account.  This  is  the  widespread  credu- 
lousness  not  only  as  to  the  efficacy,  but  as  to  the 
indispensability,  of  the  ordinary  methods  of  instruc- 
tion as  mental  training.  People  have  actually  come 
to  believe  that  no  one  can  think  without  being  taught 
to  do  so  by  means  of  all  kinds  of  mathematical  and 
classical  gymnastics. 

Whence  comes  this  monstrous  notion  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  be  capable  of  explaining — I  merely  note  its 
universal  existence.  Probably  no  doctrine  is  more 
deeply  ingrained  in  the  mind  of  the  average  person. 
There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  logic  or  sense  in  it ; 
but  somebody  with  a  huge  sense  of  humour  must 
have  once  started  the  craze — much  in  the  way  that  a 
practical  joker  will  stare  intently  at  nothing  in  a 
London  street  until  he  has  collected  a  large  and 
inquisitive  crowd,  and  will  then  steal  quietly  away, 
leaving  everybody  looking  vacuously  at  the  same 
spot. 

In  the  whole  history  of  education  there  is  no 
greater  absurdity  than  the  notion  that  a  boy  can  be 


124         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

taught  to  think  by  training  his  mind  backwards  and 
forwards  in  the  conjugation  of  irregular  verbs  and  the 
vagaries  of  Latin  or  Greek  inflections.  Exercises  of 
this  ingeniously  ridiculous  kind  only  serve  to  empty 
the  brain  of  ideas,  and  to  make  room  for  the  reception 
of  facts  crammed  in  on  the  wholesale  system.  It  is 
an  accepted  fact,  however,  that  the  brain,  in  order  to 
pursue  its  normal  functions,  must  first  be  subjected 
to  a  course  of  training  in  abstract  subjects  as  far 
removed  as  possible  from  all  human  interest ;  that 
common  sense,  in  other  words,  is  a  product  of  Greek 
roots  and  algebraical  formulae — not  of  the  natural 
application  of  the  thinking  faculties  to  the  ordinary 
circumstances  of  everyday  life. 

The  hopeless  imbecility  of  this  tenet  of  faith  is  only 
equalled  by  the  depth  to  which  it  has  taken  root  in 
the  popular  mind.  The  wonderful  thing  is  that  the 
total  failure  of  the  plan  has  not  long  ago  convinced 
everybody  of  its  uselessness.  But  that  is  at  once  the 
mischief  and  the  charm  of  the  convention  :  no  amount 
of  practical  demonstration  will  prejudice  anybody 
against  it. 

In  this  way  the  great  fallacy  of  education  has  been 
allowed  to  grow  up  and  to  spread  its  false  and 
obnoxious  principles  like  a  network  over  the  whole 
civilized  world.  With  all  the  baneful  effects  produced 
by  these  fallacious  dogmas  staring  them  in  the  face, 
people  do  not  seem  to  have  been  capable  of  tumbling 
to  the  fact  that  the  origin  of  the  social  evils  which 
surround  them  lies  in  the  very  calf  of  gold  that  they 
and  their  forefathers  have  set  up  and  worshipped. 

Even  the  reformers  of  education  appear  to  have 


THE  GREAT  FALLACY  125 

deceived  themselves.  Many  of  them — Arnold  and 
Thring  conspicuous  amongst  their  number — have 
tried  to  abolish  this  abuse  or  to  remedy  that  defect ; 
but  not  one  has  gone  to  the  root  of  the  evil,  and  has 
boldly  stated  that  the  whole  system  of  education  is 
based  upon  totally  erroneous  principles — designed, 
not  to  encourage  progress  and  generate  ideas,  but  to 
stifle  development,  and  to  place  an  insurmountable 
obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  evolution  of  humanity. 

The  world  has  acquiesced  in  the  deceit,  and  so  the 
great  fallacy  has  grown  up  unchecked,  and,  like  a 
rolling  stone,  gathered  moss  from  generation  to 
generation,  until  its  hideous  proportions  seem  to 
have  embraced  the  universe,  and  to  have  shut  out 
every  particle  of  light  from  the  vision  of  unhappy, 
convention-haunted  mankind. 


CHAPTER  XV 

REAL    EDUCATION 

There  is  no  such  thing  in  existence  as  a  system  of 
genuine  education.  A  large  number  of  institutions 
exist,  as  we  have  seen,  for  the  purpose  of  manufac- 
turing and  cramming,  after  an  approved  plan,  the 
youth  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes,  and  there  is 
a  well-organized  system  of  sham  education  spread 
throughout  the  country  under  the  title  of  'public 
elementary  schools/  That  is  the  sum  of  modern 
educational  effort. 

The  word  *  education,'  when  used  in  the  sense  that 
is  commonly  applied  to  it,  could  not  be  satisfac- 
torily and  adequately  defined  in  less  than  a  post 
octavo  pamphlet.  It  signifies  an  enormous  number 
of  things,  from  pot-hooks  to  trigonometry.  It  means 
history,  geography,  physics,  chemistry,  natural  his- 
tory, mineralogy,  Latin,  Greek,  French,  arithmetic, 
algebra,  Euclid,  and  goodness  knows  how  many  more 
things,  jammed  in  at  so  much  a  pound.  It  means 
taking  a  child,  shaking  everything  out  of  its  head, 
and  then  stuffing  every  nook  and  corner  with  facts  it 
will  never  be  able  to  remember,  and  with  dates  for 
which  it  cannot  have  any  use.  It  means  risking  the 
4nental  shipwreck  of  the  clever  child,  and   making 


REAL  EDUCATION  127 

the  stupid  more  dense.  And  it  nmeans  popping  the 
individual  into  a  mould,  and  dishing  him  up  as  a 
dummy. 

What  it  does  not  mean,  is  developing  the  faculties      / 
of  each  individual.  / 

There  is,  in  fact,  a  wide  difference  between  what 
education  is  and  what  it  should  be.  If  every  school 
and  college  throughout  the  country  were  closed  to- 
morrow, it  would  probably  effect  some  negative  good 
within  an  appreciable  measure  of  time,  and  it  would 
certainly  abolish  much  positive  harm  that  is  being 
unceasingly  produced  by  the  present  methods  of 
instruction.  If  no  effort  be  made  to  develop  the 
faculties  of  each  individual,  then  it  is  better  to  leave 
them  alone  to  develop  on  their  own  account.  But 
nothing  can  be  more  pernicious  than  to  take  the 
youth  of  the  nation  wholesale,  and  to  destroy  most_^ 
of  the  good  that  is  latent  in  them,  in  order  to  manu^^, 
facture  them  into  something  which  Nature  never 
intended  them  to  be. 

This  js  jiot  education^  but  fabrication.  It  is 
destruction,  not  development.  ,£^1  education  would 
consist  in  assisting  every  individual  to  develop  the 
faculties  with  which  Nature  had  endowed  him,  and  to 
train  to  their  highest  capacity  any  special  talents  that 
might  reveal  themselves  during  the  process.  Above 
all  things,  real  education  would  encourage  the  utiliza- 
tion of  the  brain  for  purposes  of  thought  and  reflec- 
tion, instead  of  trying  to  make  it  a  warehouse  for 
storing  van-loads  of  useless  knowledge. 

It  is  absurd  to  assume  that  this  simple  educational 
aim    is   beyond    the   reach  of  humanity.     That   its 


128        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

introduction  into  the  practical  affairs  of  life  would 
cause  a  stupendous  revolution  cannot  be  denied. 
But  it  does  not  follow,  on  that  account,  that  it 
should  be  conveniently  consigned,  like  many  another 
pressing  reform,  to  the  pigeon-hole  of  the  impossible. 

The  main  thing  that  is  required  to  carry  out  the 
true  principle  of  education  is  more  individual  com- 
mon sense  and  less  State  interference.  The  mis- 
chievous enactment  that  children  should  commence 
any  process  of  instruction  at  the  tender  age  of  five 
should  be  at  once  struck  off  the  statute-book.  No 
doubt  something  would  have  to  be  done  to  remove 
young  children  of  the  poorest  class,  in  large  towns 
at  least,  from  the  influence  of  sordid  homes  for  a 
certain  period  of  the  day.  It  does  not  follow,  how- 
ever, that  they  should  be  subjected  to  the  routine 
of  an  elementary  school  and  crammed  with  super- 
ficial and  unsuitable  knowledge. 

Children  want  room  to  think ;  their  minds  have 
to  grow  up  as  well  as  their  bodies.  Mental  nourish- 
ment is  quite  as  necessary  as  physical  nourishment ; 
but  it  is  nonsensical  to  apply  them  both  in  the  same 
fashion.  The  mind  has  to  be  fed  in  a  totally  different 
manner  to  the  body.  The  former  is  a  delicate 
operation,  that  requires  far  more  care  and  common 
sense  than  is  necessary  for  the  boiling  of  milk  or 
the  preparation  of  an  infant  food. 

The  child's  mind  is  not  a  blank,  upon  which  any- 
thing may  be  written  at  will ;  it  is  scored  invisibly 
with  heredity  and  individual  tendencies.  The  function 
of  the  parent  is  to  see  that  nothing  is  done  to 
destroy  this  delicate  fabric,  and  to  watch  carefully 


REAL  EDUCATION  129 

for  revelations  of  natural  bent  and  character,  in  order 
to  encourage  and  develop  them. 

Anything  in  the  shape  of  actual  teaching  or  in- 
struction ought  to  be  rigorously  avoided.  Facts 
should  be  regarded  as  poisons,  to  be  used  sparingly 
and  with  discrimination.  Every  time  that  a  fact  is 
imparted  an  idea  is  driven  out.  That  should  be 
carefully  borne  in  mind.  The  operation  of  the 
simplest  fact  upon  the  intelligence  is  highly  complex. 
It  is  not  only  a  thing  to  imprint  upon  the  memory, 
but  it  is  also  a  means  of  diverting  thought  into  the 
channels  of  the  commonplace.  Every  fact  closes 
up  an  avenue  of  the  imagination. 

To  take  an  illustration,  let  us  suppose  someone 
to  impart  to  a  little  child  the  information  that  it 
is  a  physiological  impossibility  for  angels  to  have 
wings  as  well  as  arms.  This  prosaic  piece  of  intel- 
ligence would,  in  one  moment,  annihilate  most  of 
the  romance  of  childhood.  It  would  be  a  blow 
from  which  the  imagination  might  never  recover. 
The  child  would,  by  a  rapid  process  of  thought,  lose 
all  faith  in  fairyland,  and  in  the  thousand  and  one 
fancies  of  the  youthful  brain  that  are  the  mainspring 
of  the  development  of  the  imagination. 

Why  is  it  that  ninety- nine  persons  out  of  a 
hundred  lose  this  faculty  in  the  earliest  period  of 
their  childhood  ?  It  is  simply  because  their  bring- 
ing-up  has  consisted  in  a  persistent  inoculation  with 
the  material  facts  of  life,  and  a  correspondingly  per- 
sistent elimination  of  all  imaginative  ideas.  *  Don't 
let  the  children  believe  such  rubbish !'  is  a  constant 
ejaculation   of  the   mechanical-minded   person   who 

9 


130         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

does  not  permit  himself  to  suffer  any  illusions,  and 
who  has  long  since  *  done  with  romance  and  all  that 
kind  of  twaddle.' 

At  any  cost  the  imagination  of  the  child  should 
be  encouraged  and  developed.  It  is  the  richest 
vein  in  the  whole  mental  machinery  of  man,  the 
faculty  within  which  genius  most  frequently  lurks, 
and  where  it  can  be  most  easily  and  permanently 
destroyed.  Grown-up  people  should  remember  that 
an  indiscreet  answer  to  a  childish  question,  or  a 
snub  administered  to  an  inquiring  mind,  is  often 
sufficient  to  check  thought.  It  should  be  mainly 
the  care  of  the  parent  to  encourage  the  imagination 
in  young  children,  recollecting  that  up  to  a  certain 
age  its  development  depends  upon  all  the  absurdities 
and  fantastic  notions  of  childhood  which  the  average 
adult  is  so  fond  of  repressing. 

By  the  exercise  of  prudence  and  some  show  of 

sympathy,  it  would  then  be  possible  to  bring  a  child 

up  to  the  age  of  seven  or  eight  without  damaging 

/  its  mind  or  destroying  its  faculties.     From  that  point 

I   onwards  the  child's  education  ought  to  depend  upon 

\  the  individual  himself.      There   should  be  no  such 

]  thing  as  instruction,  in  the  sense  which  implies  the 

I  cramming   of  the   brain  with   information,  or  such 

\  mental    gymnastics   as   conjugating   irregular   verbs 

land  hunting  for  the  least  common  multiple. 

The  position  of  teacher  and  pupil  would  have  to 
be  practically  reversed.  The  pupil  would  lead,  and 
the  teacher  follow.  In  fact,  the  latter  should  become 
an  adviser  rather  than  instructor,  the  child  selecting 
those  studies,  or  those  arts  or  crafts,  which  are  to  be 


REAL  EDUCATION  131 

made  the  principal  objective  of  its  education,  whilst 
to  the  mentor  would  fall  the  role  of  encouraging  and 
assisting  the  course  of  study  or  practice  at  a  morally- 
safe  distance. 

Boys  and  girls  would  then  not  learn,  but  investi- 
gate. The  process  of  learning  should  be  got  rid  of 
altogether,  being  a  clumsy,  dronish  way  of  acquiring 
knowledge,  and  one  that  tends  to  keep  the  brain  in  a 
perpetual  state  of  dependence. 

Ignorance,  one  ought  to  remember,  is  a  valuable 
incentive  to  investigation.  Young  people  should  be 
left  as  much  as  possible  to  find  things  out  for  them- 
selves. Education  should  resemble  a  person  groping 
forward  in  the  dark  ;  and  only  so  much  light  ought 
to  be  let  in  upon  the  process  as  seems  desirable  in 
each  individual  case.  In  that  way,  at  least,  the 
pupil  would  learn  to  think  for  himself ;  and  even  if 
little  more  were  accomplished  than  this,  it  would  be 
of  ten  thousand  times  greater  value  to  the  individual, 
and  to  the  community  at  large,  than  the  acquisition 
of  a  large  stock  of  facts  at  the  price  of  losing  all 
power  of  reflection  and  initiative. 

Let  me  give  an  illustration  of  what  I  will  call  the 
opposing  methods  of  education. 

We  will  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
the  only  available  book  for  the  instruction  of  a  class 
of  boys  was  that  excellent  but  abstruse  work  known 
as  '  Bradshaw's  Railway  Guide.'  The  modern 
schoolmaster  would  draw  up  an  exhaustive  and 
complicated  scheme.  So  much  time  would  be  de- 
voted to  parsing  every  sentence  through  the  book. 
The  figures  would  be  added  up,  and  subtracted,  and 

9—2 


132        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

divided.  He  would  concoct  neat  little  mathematical 
problems:  If  the  11.40  express  from  Paddington 
travelled  to  Swindon  at  fifty  miles  an  hour  and  broke 
down  half-way,  at  what  o'clock  would  the  12.15 
parliamentary  train  overtake  it  ?  and  so  forth.  But 
— most  valuable  exercise  of  all — long  tables  of 
trains  would  be  learnt  off  by  heart,  with  the  names 
of  stopping  places  and  the  prices  of  the  first-class 
tickets. 

A  genuine  educationist  would  set  to  work  in  a 
much  simpler  fashion.  He  would  tell  the  boys  to 
look  out  a  good  train  from  Birmingham  to  New- 
castle. Each  boy  would  be  free  to  tackle  the 
problem  in  his  own  fashion,  and  the  task — if  success- 
fully accomplished — would  do  much  towards  develop- 
ing the  thinking  faculties. 

In  any  system  of  real  education  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  the  schoolmaster  to  dictate  the  subjects 
to  which  the  pupil  should  give  his  attention,  and  it 
would  be  equally  impossible  for  the  parent  to  say 
*  I  intend  my  son  to  enter  such-and-such  a  profession.' 
Nobody  can  settle  beforehand  what  talents  the  child 
is  to  develop.  That  is  a  private  matter  in  which  no 
third  person  has  any  right  to  interfere  between  the 
child  itself  and  Nature. 

Modern  education  consists  entirely  of  interference. 
There  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  interference  of  the 
parent,  who  insists  upon  an  artistic  boy  becoming  a 
banker,  puts  an  incipient  tradesman  into  the  army, 
or  tries  to  make  a  scholar  out  of  a  mechanic.  Then 
there  comes  the  interference  of  the  schoolmaster,  who 
has  his  favourite  recipe  of  Latin  verses,  quadratic 


REAL  EDUCATION  133 

equations,  and  what  not,  to  stuff  into  every  head  he 
can  get  hold  of  for  a  few  terms.  Lastly  appears  the 
Government,  which  declares  that  nobody  shall  enter 
the  army,  or  navy,  or  civil  service,  without  devoting 
his  best  years  to  being  crammed  in  such  a  scandalous 
fashion,  that  it  is  a  toss-up  whether  he  breaks  down 
altogether  under  the  ordeal,  or  simply  forgets,  a  few 
months  after  the  consummation  of  the  process,  all 
that  has  been  pitchforked  into  his  brain. 

When  a  baby  is  brought  into  the  world  the  parents 
spend  the  first  year  of  its  life  in  wondering  and 
speculating  about  its  future.  Will  it  be  a  great 
author,  or  a  Bishop,  or  a  Lord  Chancellor?  If  its 
mouth  twitches  when  anyone  slams  a  door,  or  it 
gurgles  happily  when  a  note  is  struck  on  the  piano, 
they  declare  it  has  genius  for  music ;  and  if  it  amuses 
itself  later  on  by  crude  efforts  to  draw  distorted 
figures  with  distorted  faces  and  distorted  arms  and 
legs,  they  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  they  have 
produced  an  infant  Correggio. 

Why  does  all  this  anxiety  about  the  child's  indi- 
viduality disappear  the  moment  its  intelligence  begins 
to  dawn  ?  One  nrust  suppose,  at  any  rate,  that  it 
does,  because  the  parent  immediately  sets  about 
getting  all  the  originality  knocked  out  of  his  offspring, 
and  does  not  grudge  the  payment  of  heavy  fees  to 
secure  this  object. 

The  dreams  about  the  Lord  Chancellorship,  or  the 
gold  medal  at  the  musical  academy,  vanish  as  if  by 
magic.  There  is  no  more  talk  about  bishoprics  or 
artistic  fame.  The  parents  settle  down  to  the  con- 
ventional task  of  having  the  child  fitted  for  something 


134        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

it  has  no  desire  to  be  ;  and  the  notion  that  the  par- 
ticular faculties  they  observed — or  thought  they 
observed — during  its  early  infancy  should  or  could 
be  developed  never  appears  to  enter  their  heads  for  a 
moment. 

Some  children  develop  later  than  others ;  but  with 
proper  care  and  encouragement  it  would  be  possible 
not  to  lead,  but  to  follow,  each  child  to  its  own  bent. 
The  child  must  show  the  way — that  is  the  essence  of 
real  education,  and  it  involves  a  complete  upheaval 
of  the  principles  upon  which  systems  of  instruction 
are  at  present  founded. 

There  is  only  one  way  in  which  people  are  now 
able  to  obtain  a  genuine  education,  and  it  goes  by  the 
name — applied  with  more  or  less  contempt — of  self- 
culture.  The  process  consists  simply  in  the  indi- 
vidual choosing  his  own  subjects  and  studying  them 
as  best  he  can.  No  doubt  the  method  xould  be 
immensely  extended  and  improved,  for  the'  self- 
cultured  man  has  no  mentor  to  guide  him  when  he  is 
in  perplexity,  and  would  profit  by  experienced  advice. 

But  even  were  this  not  the  case,  it  would  be  far 
better  to  abolish  schools  and  universities  and  to  let 
everybody  shift  for  himself,  than  to  insist  upon  sub- 
jecting the  youth  of  the  nation  to  a  system  that 
ingeniously  manufactures  failures  for  every  walk  in 
life,  and  accomplishes  practically  nothing  else. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  OPEN   DOOR  TO  INTELLIGENCE 

It  has  been  the  chief  aim  in  these  pages,  not  to 
elaborate  a  scheme  of  education  on  new  principles, 
but  to  point  out  the  utter  folly  of  persisting  with 
a  system  that  has  worked  a  vast  amount  of  evil, 
and  cannot  be  proved  to  have  achieved  any  real 
good. 

Our  great  men  have  not  been  the  product  of  a 
school  curriculum,  or  of  an  academic  training.  In  no 
single  instance,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  has 
nobility  of  character,  or  the  possession  of  genius,  or 
soundness  of  judgment,  or  even  beauty  of  diction  in 
literature,  been  attributable  to  the  grind  in  gram- 
matical rules,  the  fact-cramming,  and  the  mental 
gymnastics  which  go  to  make  up  what  is  called  'a 
liberal  education.' 

In  science,  where  the  highest  intellectual  qualities  are 
brought  into  play,  most  of  the  great  discoverers  have 
owed  their  entire  scientific  knowledge  to  self-taught 
methods  of  investigation.  And  it  is  the  same  thing 
in  every  field  of  research  where  the  thinking  faculties 
must  reach  the  supreme  limit  of  development — 
namely,  that  nothing  is  traceable  to  academic  learn- 
ing,  and  that   everything   is   owing   to   the  mental 


136         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

initiative  which  is  produced  solely  by  self-inculcated 
habits  of  reflection. 

To  give  education  systems  the  credit,  or  even  a 
share  in  the  credit,  of  all  the  splendid  achievements 
in  politics,  science,  art,  and  literature  is  sheer  intel- 
lectual laziness.  It  is  the  curse  of  the  age  that  few 
people  will  trouble  to  question  the  existing  order  of 
things,  and  that  nobody — except  those  who  make 
the  manufacture  of  opinions  their  profession — can  be 
found  to  express  an  independent  opinion  on  any 
subject  under  the  sun. 

That  is  one  reason  why  newspapers  exist  in  their 
present  form.  The  leading  article  is  primarily  the 
invention  of  the  stupid,  conventional,  well-educated 
man  whose  profound  knowledge  of  dates  and  irregular 
verbs  has,  unfortunately,  had  the  effect  of  preventing 
him  from  forming  his  own  judgment  on  public  affairs. 
The  Press,  which  must  have  been  originally  estab- 
lished, like  the  famous  Peking  Gazette,  for  the  dis- 
semination of  news,  has  long  ago  discovered  that 
people  prefer  to  obtain  their  opinions  ready-made. 

The  wise  argument  we  hear  being  urged  in  a 
railway-carriage  or  at  a  dinner-table  is  merely  an 
intellectual  reach-me-down  purchased  at  a  book-stall 
for  the  modest  price  of  one  penny.  If  there  were  only 
one  newspaper,  and  consequently  only  one  leading 
article  on  a  particular  topic,  political  discussion  would 
die  a  natural  death. 

The  political  opinion  to  which  the  majestic  alder- 
man or  the  classically-trained  savant  gives  such  pro- 
found utterance  is  the  opinion,  not  of  himself,  but  of 
some  poor  devil  who  knows  nothing  of  the  blessings 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  TO  INTELLIGENCE    137 

of  a  university  education,  but  who  writes  in  a  garret, 
or  in  a  dingy  office  off  Fleet  Street,  to  earn  his  bread 
and  cheese. 

Its  value  or  political  insight  need  not  be  dis- 
paraged on  that  account.  I  would  trust  it  a  thousand 
times  rather  than  I  would  trust  the  opinion — if  such 
a  thing  should  have  any  existence — of  the  average 
educated  man  whose  brains  have  been  jellified  at 
school  or  college.  The  point  is  not  the  value  of  the 
humble  scribe's  opinion,  however,  but  the  fact  that  a 
man,  of  what  would  be  called  inferior  educational 
attainments,  has  to  be  engaged  to  do  mental  work 
that  cannot  be  performed  by  the  brains  of  people 
who  have  enjoyed  all  the  advantages  that  a  first-rate 
education  is  supposed  to  confer. 

The  vote  of  the  working-man  is  scarcely  more 
unintelligently  applied  at  election  times  than  the 
vote  of  the  educated  man.  On  the  contrary,  the 
former  may  be  said  to  think  independently,  or  at 
least  to  use  an  independent  instinct,  whilst  the  latter 
is  contented  to  believe  in  the  iniquity  of  one  party  or 
the  virtue  of  another,  according  to  the  opinion  of  the 
man  in  the  garret.  The  working  man  wants  beer, 
and  he  knows  it.  The  China  question,  the  war  in 
South  Africa,  the  housing  of  the  working  classes,  the 
great  education  controversy — everything  is  beer  to 
him.  It  is  the  Government  who  cheapen  beer,  or  who 
regulate  the  percentage  of  arsenic  to  be  used  in  brew- 
ing, that  command  his  support — not  Ministers  who 
promise  to  maintain  British  supremacy  in  the  Far 
East,  or  who  put  forward  an  attractive  programme  of 
domestic  legislation. 


138        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

The  natural  consequence  of  this  wholesale  produc- 
tion of  dummy  members  of  society  is  that  the  strings 
of  government  are  really  pulled  by  the  intelligent 
few.  Whatever  the  external  constitution  of  Great 
Britain  may  be,  the  real  power  does  not  lie  with 
Parliament  or  with  the  Executive,  but  is  invariably 
wielded  by  one  or  more  men  of  commanding  ability. 

Nominally,  the  administration  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  social  aristocracy,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  few  peer 
families  and  their  innumerable  relations.  Whichever 
of  the  two  great  parties  in  the  State  may  happen  to 
be  in  power,  the  Government  is  invariably  exploited 
by  members  of  the  peer  class,  who  practically  divide 
the  spoils  of  office  amongst  themselves  and  their 
immediate  entourage. 

Although,  however,  the  English  nobility  manage 
to  usurp  all  the  offices  of  State,  and  to  secure  all  the 
plums  for  themselves,  it  is  not  they  who  really  govern 
the  country.  No  doubt  the  landed  aristocracy  are 
politically  the  most  fit  to  govern.  They  have  no 
commercial  or  industrial  interests  that  may  bring 
corrupt  and  undesirable  influences  into  public  life. 
But  they  are  unfitted  for  the  position  they  ought  to 
occupy  by  a  system  of  education  that  manufactures 
mediocrity,  and  stifles  the  very  qualities  of  imagina- 
tiveness and  initiative  which  are  indispensable  to 
sound  statesmanship. 

What  is  the  inevitable  result  ? 

The  self-made  man,  with  all  his  splendid  intellectual 
faculties  developed,  with  his  independence  of  judg- 
ment, and  his  acquired  habit  of  thinking  for  himself 
instead  of  leaning  on  precedent  and  borrowed  wisdom, 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  TO  INTELLIGENCE  139 

rides  the  dummy  Government  class  with  whip  and 
spur.  He  lays  on  the  lash  here  and  digs  in  the 
rowels  there,  goading  on  his  steed  in  any  direction 
that  chances  to  suit  his  purpose.  He  naturally  places 
personal  ambition  in  front  of  national  expediency, 
because  his  political  career  is  necessarily  a  constant 
fight  against  odds.  Either  he  must  rise  superior  to 
the  peer  combination,  as  Disraeli  succeeded  in  doing 
after  a  struggle  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  political 
history,  or  he  will  be  crushed  by  it. 

But  the  necessities  of  his  position  render  the  self- 
made  man  a  particularly  undesirable  element  in  the 
administration  of  public  affairs.  During  the  course 
of  his  successful  upward  struggle  he  has,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  entangled  himself  in  commercial  or 
industrial  interests  from  which  it  is  difficult  or  im- 
possible for  him  to  dissociate  himself.  By  this 
means,  and  through  the  necessarily  adventurous 
character  of  his  political  career,  he  can  scarcely 
avoid  becoming,  however  undeserved  the  imputation 
may  be,  an  object  of  suspicion.  And  when  once 
distrust  of  this  kind  has  been  allowed  to  permeate 
through  our  public  life,  the  degeneration  of  parlia- 
mentary government  must  follow. 

Disraeli  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  political 
life  in  manoeuvring  for  the  premiership.  When 
his  object  had  been  successfully  attained,  all  his 
great  qualities  were  turned  to  the  advantage  of  the 
State.  But  up  to  that  point  he  was  compelled,  in 
order  to  survive  in  his  colossal  struggle  against  the 
aristocratic  element  in  politics,  to  play  for  his  own 
hand. 


140        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

That  must  always  be  the  case  with  the  self-made 
man.  His  first  objective  must  be  his  own  self- 
preservation,  and  if  he  wishes  to  gain  power  he  is 
bound  to  exploit  the  political  situation,  regardless 
of  the  best  interests  of  the  country,  because  every 
man's  hand  is  against  him  until  the  summit  of  his 
ambition  has  been  reached. 

Schools  and  colleges  in  which  the  mind  is  crammed 
instead  of  being  developed  cannot  produce  statesmen. 
They  can  manufacture  in  unlimited  quantities  the 
type  of  well  -  intentioned,  honourable  mediocrity 
with  which  our  public  service  is  stocked.  But  as 
long  as  this  process  is  continued,  the  real  power  in 
the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  Empire  will 
remain  virtually  in  the  hands  of  a  few  able  individuals 
of  the  wrong  calibre.  There  will  be  a  dummy  Prime 
Minister,  and  a  dummy  Cabinet ;  but  the  wires  will  be 
worked  by  the  self-made  man  who  must  place  himself 
first  and  his  country  second,  with  consequences  usually 
disastrous  to  the  national  welfare. 

There  is  no  intended  disparagement  of  the  self- 
made  man.  He  is,  and  always  has  been,  the  best 
intellectual  product  of  the  age.  The  greatest  states- 
men, philosophers,  scientists,  writers,  and  other  men 
of  genius  have  been  self-made  or  self-cultured.  But 
it  does  not  follow  because  great  statesmen  have  been 
self-made  men,  that  it  is  for  the  good  of  the  country 
that  its  rulers  should  be  drawn  from  that  class.  As 
has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  self-made  man 
usually  creates  far  more  mischief  in  the  course  of  his 
upward  political  struggle,  than  is  compensated  for 
afterwards  when  he  has  secured  his  position  and  can 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  TO  INTELLIGENCE  141 

turn  his  talents  to  the  account  of  his  country,  instead 
of  for  the  purpose  of  securing  his  own  personal  ad- 
vancement. 

There  is,  it  must  be  remembered,  a  national  emer- 
gency for  which  we  have  to  prepare.  Our  extended 
Imperial  obligations,  and  the  sharp  commercial  com- 
petition which  has  caused  some  of  the  great  Powers 
to  sacrifice  individuality  wholesale  in  order  to  mobil- 
ize an  army  of  traders,  make  it  imperative  that 
measures  should  be  taken  to  preserve  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race. 

The  thing  to  avoid  at  this  moment  is  imitation  of 
tactics  that  will  send  every  nation  adopting  them 
backward  in  evolution.  To  secure  a  temporary  com- 
mercial triumph  at  the  enormous  sacrifice  of  the 
natural  development  of  the  individual,  would  be  a 
fatal  and  short-sighted  policy  that  could  only  end  in 
national  ruin.  We  have  not  yet  reached  the  worst 
depths  of  the  education  fallacy,  but  we  are  com- 
placently drifting  in  that  direction. 

State  interference  in  educational  matters  may  be 
an  excellent  thing  when  the  whole  energies  of  the 
central  authorities  happen  to  be  exerted  in  mitigation 
of  the  evils  of  the  national  system.  But  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  political  parties  and  the  heads  of 
departments  are  constantly  changing  in  this  country. 
The  reformer  of  to-day  may  to-morrow  be  superseded 
by  a  retrogressive-minded  mediocrity  ;  and  there 
would  be  no  guarantee  that  the  beneficial  influence 
of  the  one  would  not  be  annihilated  afterwards  by 
the  pernicious  intermeddling  of  the  other. 

Instead  of  casting  about  for  means  of  securing  a 


142        THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

State  monopoly  of  the  ruinous  type  of  education  sup- 
plied by  our  schools  and  colleges,  it  would  be  more 
conducive  to  the  salvation  of  the  country  if  the  whole 
energies  of  the  nation  were  directed  towards  revolu- 
tionizing the  system  of  instruction  itself. 

If  schoolmasters  can  accomplish  nothing  better 
than  the  manufacture  of  set  types  of  humanity,  the 
progress  of  mankind  would  be  promoted  more  rapidly 
without  their  assistance. 

What  is,  after  all,  the  main  object  of  education  ? 

It  is  to  assist  everybody  to  develop  his  faculties 
and  talents,  so  that  he  may  be  fitted  for  the  position 
in  life  which  Nature  intended  him  to  occupy. 

Nobody  can  assert  for  an  instant  that  the  con- 
ventional methods  of  instructing  youth  either  achieve, 
or  even  appear  to  aim  at  achieving,  this  end.  The 
school  does  not  pretend  to  discover  or  to  encour- 
age individual  talents.  It  offers  to  pound  so  much 
Latin  grammar,  mathematics,  history,  geography, 
etc.,  into  each  pupil,  and  to  turn  him  out  at  the 
end  of  the  process  with  exactly  the  same  mental 
equipment  as  that  acquired  by  the  rest  of  his  school- 
fellows. 

The  principal  aim  of  this  book  has  been  to  draw 
attention  to  the  incongruities  and  evils  brought  about 
by  this  sham  and  worthless  system  of  education.  That 
the  world  contains  many  illustrious  examples  of  cul- 
ture and  genius  is  no  proof  that  the  slightest  benefit 
has  been  derived  by  anybody  from  parsing  Ovid 
or  cramming  facts  and  dates.  *The  best  part  of 
every  man's  education,'  said  Sir  Walter  Scott, '  is  that 
which  he  gives  to  himself;  and  it  might  be  added. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  TO  INTELLIGENCE   143 

with  literal  truth,  that  it  is  the  only  part  which  is  of 
the  slightest  service  in  developing  the  mind  with 
which  he  has  been  naturally  endowed. 

All  that  I  have  presumed  to  advocate  is  that  the 
door  should  be  left  open  to  intelligence. 

The  education  systems  of  the  present  day  are  par- 
ticularly felicitous  in  keeping  it  firmly  closed.  It  is 
only  by  dodging  the  schoolmaster  and  the  coach 
that  youthful  talent  stands  a  chance  of  being  brought 
to  maturity.  The  greatest  achievements  are  not  the 
work  of  senior  wranglers  and  Balliol  scholars :  they  1 
have  been  accomplished  by  class-room  dunces,  like  1 
Clive  and  Wellington;  by  school  idlers,  such  as 
Napoleon,  Disraeli,  Swift,  and  Newton  ;  or  by  self- 
taught  men  like  Stephenson,  John  Hunter,  Living- 
stone, and  Herschell.  __ 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  institution  of  a 
rational  method  of  developing  the  mind  of  the  indi- 
vidual would  sweep  away  all  these  anomalies.  There 
are  thousands  of  men  in  responsible  positions  who 
would  willingly  exchange  their  entire  stock  of  classical 
or  mathematical  knowledge  for  a  modicum  of  common 
sense  and  judgment.  If  everybody  were  encouraged 
to  think  for  himself,  the  Empire  would  have  no  lack 
of  good  servants  to  carry  on  the  traditions  of  the 
past ;  and  the  dummy  unit  of  administration  would 
give  place  to  a  self-reliant  man,  capable  of  moving 
with  the  times,  and  of  serving  the  public  interest 
according  to  its  wants,  instead  of  clinging  merely  to 
routine  and  precedent. 

Nearly  all  the  misery  suffered  by  humanity  has 
been  produced  by  artificial  means.     Providence  did 


144         THE  CURSE  OF  EDUCATION 

not  intend  this  world  to  be  a  place  of  purgatory  for 
the  majority  of  mankind.  We  are  what  we  have 
made  ourselves,  and  not  what  evolution  intended  us 
to  be.  It  is  in  our  power  to  mitigate  much  of  the 
evil  we  have  ignorantly  manufactured  for  our  own 
discomfiture,  if  we  only  attack  it  at  the  roots.  And 
the  greatest  curse  humanity  has  laid  upon  itself  is 
that  arbitrary  interference  with  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  the  mind  which  is  misnamed  ^  education.' 


or  TH^     ' 

.  ri        or 


THE   END 


BILT.ING    AND    SONS,    LTD.,    PRINTERS,    GUILDFORD 


J 


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